In short

During the first years of the 17th century Willem van Nieulandt the Younger spent four years in Rome, studying under his uncle Willem the Elder and under the important landscape painter Paul Bril. This stay was decisive for his later development: their influence and the town views with Classical ruins that he saw here would inspire him during his complete career.

About Willem van Nieulandt II

Flemish painter
Also active as a well-known playwright, and as a poet and engraver
Antwerp 1584  – 1635 Amsterdam

History and landscape painter: specialist in biblical and mythological subjects set against a Roman backdrop with ancient ruins and statues.

His first name is often spelt Guilliam, as he signed his paintings this way.

Son of the Antwerp quill merchant (‘penverkoper’) Adriaen van Nieulandt. Following the conquest of Antwerp by Spanish, thus Catholic troops in 1585, he moved with his family in 1589 to Amsterdam.

Willem II studied painting in Amsterdam under the Flemish painter Jacob Savery I (circa 1565 – 1603).

He left Amsterdam in the autumn of 1601 for Rome. From 1601 until 1603 he worked and studied here in the workshop of his uncle, the painter Willem van Nieulandt I (1560 – 1626) who had arrived in Rome in 1596 and remained here until his death in 1626. He was known in Italy as Guglielmo Terranova. Inspired by this Italian first name our painter probably started writing his as Guilliam. In his testament made in 1626 in Rome Willem I left his house in Antwerp to our painter.

Karel van Mander mentions that in 1604 Willem II was a disciple of the famous Flemish landscape painter Paulus Bril  (1554 – 1626) in Rome. This stay in Rome, combined with the numerous drawings that he made, laid the foundations for the architectural motifs that he would paint after his return in the Low Countries.

That same year, 1604, Willem II returned to Amsterdam, got married in February 1606 and immediately left for his birthplace Antwerp. Here he divided his attention between several branches of the Arts: painting, engraving, poetry and playwriting. His Antwerp contemporaries considered him the most successful author of tragedies, which were based on a Christian-Stoic philosophy and were characterized by a great purity of language. Van Nieulandt enjoyed, just as his great example the Roman author Seneca, to include grim, gruesome scenes in the six plays that he published in Antwerp. Willem was a member of the Antwerp Chamber of Rhetoric ‘de Olyftack’ from 1613 to 1621. That year he transferred to its rival, ‘de Violieren’, until 1629.

In 1628 his daughter Constantia married the Antwerp still-life painter Adriaen van Utrecht.

Willem II left for Amsterdam after May 1629. In 1635 he published his last, seventh, tragedy, drew up his will (24/10) and died shortly after.

Willem’s brother, Adriaen van Nieulandt I (circa 1586 – 1658), was a history and still life painter, who had been a pupil in Amsterdam of Pieter Isaacsz and of Frans Badens. He was also active as art dealer. He seems to have stayed in Amsterdam, although a single work from 1612 is inscribed “Antwerpen”.

Why should you buy this painting?

Because, although fictitious, it perfectly catches the atmosphere of Rome at the very start of the 17^th century: a small town filled with scattered ancient Roman ruins.