Quiringh Gerritsz. van Brekelenkam is first recorded when he entered the Leiden guild in 1648. His earliest dated painting is of 1644. He married in Leiden in the same year and is recorded there continuously until his death in 1668. He was a genre painter.
Quiringh van Brekelenkam
active 1644; died 1668
Paintings by Quiringh van Brekelenkam
There are lots of examples in Dutch seventeenth-century painting of artists using images of sleeping women for satirical purposes – to emphasise neglect of their moral duties. That is not the case here. Van Brekelenkam was more concerned with paying homage to diligent housekeepers: this woman has...
Not on display
This is a painting paying homage to diligent housekeeping, domestic harmony and a contented husband and wife. We are in a kitchen, so the woman takes centre stage and she sits bathed in light from the high window. She catches our eye, confident perhaps that we will approve of her housekeeping. Th...
Not on display
Brekelenkam painted tailors in their shops many times, as well as depicting weavers, spinners, and seamstresses – all trades which thrived as part of Leiden’s prosperous seventeenth-century textile industry. He repeated the same basic composition of the tailor sitting cross-legged in front of the...