Jan Erasmus Quellinus (1634 - 1715)

Jan Erasmus Quellinus

Jan Erasmus Quellinus was a Flemish painter and draughtsman, one of the last prominent representatives of the Flemish school of historical and portrait painting of the 17th century.

Jan came from a famous family of painters and sculptors, his father, the painter Erasmus Quellinus II (1607-1678), being his first and principal teacher. Later in Italy, he became a member of the Bentvueghels, a group of mainly Dutch and Flemish artists working in Rome. Back in Antwerp, Jan Quellinus received many commissions for churches in the city and throughout Flanders, and he also had many pupils.

Around 1680, Quellinus worked in Vienna at the Habsburg court as court painter to Emperor Leopold I. Among his other important works was a series of fifteen ceiling paintings of events in the life of Charles V. Some of these works are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.