Tobias Verhaecht

Tobias Verhaecht (1561–1631) was a painter from Antwerp in the Duchy of Brabant who primarily painted landscapes. His style was indebted to the mannerist world landscape developed by artists like Joachim Patinir and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. He was the first teacher of Pieter Paul Rubens.

Life

Tobias Verhaecht was born in Antwerp as the son of Cornelis van Haecht. His father must also have been an artist as Verhaecht was admitted to the Antwerp Guild of St Luke as the son of a master.

It is not recorded with whom he studied. Before 1590 he travelled to Italy and first worked in Florence where Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany was his patron. He then moved on to Rome where he was active as a painter of landscape frescos. He returned to Antwerp where he became a master of the Guild of St. Luke in 1590–91.

Not long after he married Suzanna van Mockenborch, who was the granddaughter of Peter Paul Rubens' stepfather Jan de Landmetere, and a cousin of his mother. The couple had two sons Cornelis and Willem and one daughter Suzanna. His wife died in 1595 after the birth of their daughter. This happened during a difficult financial period for Verhaecht when he had also been appointed deacon of the Guild.

The artist died in Antwerp in 1631.

His work closely resembles in style the set of 12 large prints published by Hieronymus Cock after designs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, which are referred to by art historians as the Large Landscapes. Verhaecht's landscapes were not entirely oblivious of the work of Josse de Momper and Gillis van Coninxloo who were evolving towards a more close-up and realist approach and he adopted some of the elements of the new approach.

He collaborated with other local painters such as Jan Brueghel the Elder, Frans Francken the Younger, Sebastian Vrancx and Gillis Coignet who painted the figures in his paintings. Some of Verhaecht's landscapes were made into prints.