Dirk van Hoogstraten

circa 1596 Antwerp – 1640 Dordrecht

The painter and etcher, Dirk van Hoogstraten, was born around 1596 in Antwerp. When still a young man, however, he moved with his parents to The Hague, where he was trained as a gold­smith, given drawing lessons and taught how to engrave. He is known to have subsequently undertaken study trips to Germany and Italy. In the 1620s van Hoogstraten set himself up as an independent artist in Dordrecht, where he is mentioned in November 1624 as being a member of the local painters’ guild. At the end of the decade van Hoogstraten returned to The Hague, where he lived and worked until shortly before his death. He was the father of the Rembrandt pupil, poet and art theorist, Samuel van Hoogstraten.