Abraham Willemsens

Abraham Willemsens or Abraham Willemsen (Antwerp 15 February 1614 - Antwerp, 5 December 1672), was a Flemish painter and art dealer. He painted biblical subjects and genre scenes. His genre scenes were somewhat reminiscent of the style of the Le Nain brothers. He also produced copies after the works of Rubens and Italian masters. His workshop had a large output which was mainly exported to Spain through Antwerp art dealers.

Life He was born in Antwerp as the son of Michiel Willemsen(s) and Elisabetha de Bruichel. He was recorded the same year in Paris where he spent a significant amount of time until about 1648-1650. He was in contact with the Flemish-French still life painter and art dealer Jean-Michel Picart who held a significant position in the Paris Guild of Saint Luke. Picart sold four of his paintings to the Duchess of Orléans. In Paris, he also came into contact with the Le Nain brothers, whose style appears to have influenced his rural scenes. The sales records of these aforementioned art dealers document sales of a total of 461 paintings from the Willemsens workshop mainly destined for the Spanish and French markets. Of these, 208 were works by other Antwerp painters to which the workshop had added the background staffage. In addition, the workshop directly worked with Antwerp painters such as Cornelis de Baellieur, Hieronymus Janssens and Hendrik de Poeter to add staffage in their paintings. The staffage was mostly incorporated into large landscape paintins, which were typically adaptations of works by Flemish masters such as Rubens, Gerard Seghers and the Francken family. In contrast to the paintings signed or monogrammed by W. himself, the workshop paintings exhibit considerable variations in quality. He was active as an art dealer himself. He had three apprentices: Francois Verbeck started his apprenticeship in the guild year 1651/52 and Jan Looybos and Hendrick Watele in the guild year 1653/54. The identification of Willemsens with the Master of the Béguins has not been widely accepted in the art historical community.

Willemsens is recorded in Paris around 1645 and this can explain the influence of the Le Nain brothers who were active in Paris at that time and were known for their peasant scenes. Aside from the subject matter, another reason why Willemsens' work has often been mis-attributed to the Le Nains is that, like the Le Nains, he habitually used coarse linen as the canvas support.

In response to the contemporary demand for copies of Rubens' oil sketches, Willemsens produced a large number of copies of Rubens' work. Willemsens was together with Pieter van Lint and Willem van Herp one of the principal producers of such copies for the Antwerp art dealers. In addition to copies after Rubens, Willemsens painted landscapes on copper, often animated with religious or genre scenes. His figures were derived primarily from paintings by Rubens, Hendrick van Balen and Gerard Seghers. Willemsens also took inspiration from Jan Brueghel the Elder, Frans Francken the Elder and the Le Nain brothers.