Jan Verkolje
1650–1693 · Dutch Republic · Dutch Golden Age, Baroque, Mezzotint, Genre painting, Portrait painting
The story
According to Arnold Houbraken, the early biographer of Dutch artists, Jan Verkolje's path to painting began with an accident. As a boy in Amsterdam, the son of a locksmith, he hurt his foot playing with darts, the wound healed badly, and he spent long stretches in bed copying prints to pass the time. Later he took about six months of lessons with Jan Andrea Lievens, son of the painter Jan Lievens.
In 1672, the Disaster Year when France and its German allies invaded the Dutch Republic, he moved to Delft and married there. He joined the local painters' guild in 1673 and served several terms as its dean. He painted genre scenes such as the Mauritshuis's The Messenger of 1674, and portraits of the Delft elite, among them the microscope pioneer Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, shown with his diploma from the Royal Society in London. Verkolje was also a gifted mezzotint engraver, and in 1686 he turned that portrait into a print.
He died in Delft in 1693, aged 43, and his son Nicolaas carried on as a painter.
