Bartholomeus van der Helst, born in Haarlem …

Years: 1650 - 1650

Bartholomeus van der Helst, born in Haarlem to an innkeeper, had moved to Amsterdam some time before 1636, for he had been married here in that year.

His first dated picture, a group portrait of the regents of the Walloon Orphanage (currently the location of Maison Descartes in Amsterdam), dates from 1637.

It is unknown from whom he had earned to paint, but in Haarlem he must have at least known the work of Frans Hals, who like him, never traveled to Italy and specialized in portraiture.

Hals refused even to travel to Amsterdam to paint the lucrative schuttersstukken, or city militia, and a few years after the trekschuit (a horse-drawn tugboat specific to the Netherlands) made commuting to Amsterdam possible in 1632, he had attempted this in 1636 with the De Magere Compagnie, but gave it up and let Pieter Codde finish it.

As the son of an innkeeper with ever-increasing trekschuit patrons, van der Helst would have seen immediately the importance of this and the relative value of Amsterdam above Haarlem.

In any case, he had moved to Amsterdam and in 1639 won his own schutterstuk commission, The company of Captain Roelof Bicker and Lieutenant Jan Michielsz Blaeuw.

In Amsterdam he may well have trained with Nicolaes Eliaszoon Pickenoy.

A contemporary of Rembrandt, van der Helst had soon become the most popular painter of portraits in this city, his flattering portrayals in the style of Anthony van Dyck being more immediately appealing than Rembrandt's dark and introspective later work.

Some of Rembrandt's pupils, including Ferdinand Bol and Govaert Flinck, adopt Van Helst's style instead of their master's.

His large group portrait, Banquet of the Amsterdam Civic Guard in Celebration of the Peace of Münster, is painted in 1648, and exhibited to popular acclaim.

Bartholomeus van der Helst: Banquet of the Amsterdam Civic Guard in Celebration of the Peace of Münster, painted 1648, exhibited at the Rijksmuseum.

Bartholomeus van der Helst: Banquet of the Amsterdam Civic Guard in Celebration of the Peace of Münster, painted 1648, exhibited at the Rijksmuseum.

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