Erasmus Quellinus II

Erasmus Quellinus the Younger came from the closest thing Antwerp had to an artistic dynasty. His father was a sculptor, one brother, Artus, became the leading Baroque sculptor of the Low Countries, another was an engraver, and Erasmus himself had studied philosophy before he settled on painting. That learning shows in his taste for classical and allegorical subjects.

In the 1630s he became one of Peter Paul Rubens's closest collaborators, working on the huge decorative schemes the older master took on, including the temporary triumphal arches built to welcome a new governor into the city. When Rubens died in 1640, much of that demand for grand history painting passed to Quellinus, and he became one of the busiest painters in Flanders, also designing tapestries and title pages for the great Antwerp printing house of Plantin.

He kept a large workshop turning out altarpieces, portraits and mythologies for patrons in Flanders and abroad. His son Jan Erasmus became a painter too, a third generation of the family in the trade.