Jan Carel Vierpeyl

Jan Carel Vierpeyl or Jan Carel Vierpyl (c. 1675 – in or after 1723) was a Flemish painter known mainly for his family portraits and genre scenes of merry and gallant companies.

Life Details about the life of Vierpeyl are very scarce. He was enrolled in 1698 at the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as a pupil of Jacob Balthasar Peeters. It has been deduced from this date that Vierpeyl was likely born somewhere between 1665 and 1685. Jacob Balthasar Peeters was an architectural painter. Balthasar van den Bossche is mentioned as another master of Vierpeyl.

It is not clear whether he was related to, or even the father of, the sculptor and architect Simon Vierpyl, who is presumed to have been born in 1725 in London, where he trained with the Flemish sculptor Peter Scheemakers. A painting by Jan Carel Vierpeyl dated 1721 in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland, which was believed in the past to depict the philosopher Francis Hutcheson and his daughter, may point to a stay in Great Britain by Jan Carel Vierpeyl. After 1723, all trace of the artist is lost.

The family portraits typically depict the larger or smaller family together with the family dog in a formal indoor setting. The ancestors of the sitters are also included through their portraits that are hung on the back wall. The Portrait of a Man and his Daughter dated 1721(National Gallery of Ireland) depicts a seated man with a quill in his hand. His standing teenage daughter is holding a book and is pointing to a harpsichord in the room. The lid of the harpsichord is open and the painting on the inside of the lid is in the Flemish and French tradition.

Works of Vierpeyl are in the collections of the Brukenthal National Museum, the Pushkin Museum and the National Gallery of Ireland.