Jan Josephszoon Van Goyen

Jan Josephszoon van Goyen was born on January 13, 1596, in Leiden, where he began his artistic training at just ten years old. Per the near-contemporary account of biographer Jan Orlers, his early teachers included Isaac van Swanenburgh (c. 1537–1614). Orlers also records a year spent in France before Van Goyen settled in Haarlem, where he studied under Esaias van de Velde I (Dutch, 1587–1630) in 1617; the influence shows clearly in his early work.

Van Goyen was back in Leiden by 1618, the same year he married Annetje Willemsdr van Raelst. He appears often in Leiden's civic records between 1625 and 1632, a period that included buying a house on the Sint Peterskerkstraat in 1625 and selling it in 1629 to marine painter Jan Porcellis (c. 1584–1632). He relocated to The Hague around the summer of 1632 and became a citizen there two years later. A stint working in Haarlem in 1634, at the home of Isaack van Ruysdael (1599–1677, brother of Salomon), proved to be an exception; from then on, records place him solely in The Hague. There he purchased a house on the Wagenstraat in 1635 and, the following year, built another on the Dunne Bierkade, later home to Paulus Potter (Dutch, 1625–1654) from 1649 to 1652. Despite steady success as a painter, Van Goyen spent much of his life chasing business ventures on the side, art dealing, auctioneering, real estate, tulip speculation, most of which failed to pay off.

Alongside fellow artists Pieter Molijn (Dutch, 1595–1661) and Salomon van Ruysdael (Dutch, c. 1602–1670) of Haarlem, Van Goyen helped pioneer a new landscape style during the 1630s: grounded in local scenery and rendered in a muted, tonal palette. Their innovations are now considered central to the golden age of Dutch landscape painting. Van Goyen held considerable standing within The Hague's artistic circles, serving as hoofdman of the painters' guild in both 1638 and 1640. Further recognition came in 1651, when the city commissioned him to paint a panoramic cityscape for the burgomaster's chambers in the Town Hall. His family, too, was tied into the artistic world: in 1649, his daughter Margaretha married painter Jan Steen (Dutch, 1625/1626–1679), while another daughter, Maria, married still-life painter Jacques de Claeuw (c. 1620–1670 or after). Yet for all his professional achievements, Van Goyen died insolvent in The Hague on April 27, 1656.