Jan Carel van Eyck

Jan Carel van Eyck or Jan Karel van Eyck (1649 in Antwerp – 1686/1706), was a Flemish painter active in Antwerp and Italy in the second half of the 17th century. He is known for his landscapes with villages and city scapes with genre scenes. He is also mentioned as a painter of portraits and biblical scenes.

Life

Jan Carel van Eyck was born in Antwerp as the son of the painter Nicolaas van Eyck and Dymphna Heyman. He was baptized on 12 May 1649. He had another brother called Nicolaas who became a painter but of whom no known works are known. His father was mainly a battle painter while his uncle Gaspar was a marine painter. Jan Carel's family was well-off and lived at a prestigious address on the Meir in Antwerp. His father became a captain of a local schutterij in 1658. Jan Carel was registered at Antwerp's Guild of Saint Luke as a pupil of the history painter Jan Erasmus Quellinus under whom he started to study in 1669.

There is no record that he became a master of the Guild. He travelled to Italy and his presence in Rome in 1677 is recorded. On a winter landscape noted in 1907 the signature reads 'Roma', which is further evidence that he resided in Rome.

The Prado attributes a work in its collection depicting the Fall of Phaeton to van Eyck. This is a painting from the series of paintings inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses made by various Antwerp artists after designs by Peter Paul Rubens for the King of Spain's hunting lodge. It is clear that this work cannot have been painted by Jan Carel van Eyck since he was not even born when this series of paintings was executed in the mid-1630s. At the Netherlands Institute for Art History site the painting is attributed to an anonymous painter.