Hendrik van Minderhout

Hendrik van Minderhout (1632 – 22 July 1696) was a Dutch-born artist who was primarily active in the Flemish cities Bruges and Antwerp. He painted marine paintings, harbor scenes, cityscapes, landscapes and architectural paintings. He also collaborated as a staffage painter with Flemish landscape and perspective painters.

Life

Minderhout was born in Rotterdam. He should not be confused with the Rotterdam landscape painter Minderhout named 'den groenen Ridder'. He arrived in Bruges in 1652. He may have spent time in Italy in 1653. In 1663, he joined Bruges' Guild of Saint Luke. Subsequently, from 1672 until his death in 1696, van Minderhout lived in Antwerp where he became a member of the local Guild of Saint Luke.

In 1673, he married his second wife, Anna-Victoria Claus. The couple had five children, of whom two, Antoon (26 Sept 1675 – 22 Dec 1705) and Willem Augustin (28 Aug 1680 – 31 June 1752), became painters.

Van Minderhout was appreciated as a staffage painter by his Antwerp colleagues. He contributed the figures to works by local landscape and perspective painters including Wilhelm Schubert van Ehrenberg and Jacob Balthasar Peeters.