Jan Jansz van de Velde

Three generations of men named Jan van de Velde worked with pen, burin and brush, and this one, born in Haarlem in 1620, was the third. His grandfather, a writing master in Rotterdam, published a celebrated model book of calligraphy in 1605. His father, also Jan, was a Haarlem engraver of landscape prints, and he taught his son.

The son went his own way, into still life. His pictures are small and quiet, usually a glass of beer and one of wine, a clay pipe and some tobacco, now and then a few playing cards, set on the corner of a table. Their muted, grey-toned manner owes much to Willem Claesz Heda, the Haarlem master of the breakfast piece, a laid table caught in the middle of a meal.

He married in Amsterdam in 1643 and soon moved to Enkhuizen, a port on the Zuiderzee where he had family. He was buried there, in the Westerkerk, on 10 July 1662.