Jan Vonck was born in Poland, in Torun. At the latest at the age of 8 his parents returned to Amsterdam, where Jan studied under his father, Elias.

 

Elias prefered painting large still lifes with game, Jan small ones. He only occasionally painted larger scenes with dead game.

 

 

Dutch painter

Torun (Poland) 1631 – 1663/64 Amsterdam

 

Painter of animal still lifes.

Pupil of his father, Elias (Amsterdam circa 1605 – 1652 Amsterdam),

who had been the first Dutch master to specialize in still lifes of game, probably under Flemish influence.

 

Jan’s father, Elias, had an adventurous character. 

- In his early twenty’s he travelled to Brazil as a naval cadet corporal. Between 1630 and 1654 the Dutch colonized and controlled Northern Brazil; their capital was Recife. They finally lost Dutch Brazil to the Portuguese.

- He obviously also travelled to Poland, as his son, our painter, Jan Vonck, was born there. Torun was also the birthplace of Nicolaus Copernicus, the astronomer who placed the sun instead of the earth at the centre of our solar system. The city was founded in 1231 by the Teutonic knights (hence its German name Thorn). In the early 17th century its population of 30.000 was equal to that of Warsaw.

 

Certainly from 1639 on (the year of his sister's birth, when he was 8 years old) Jan lived and later worked in Amsterdam.

 

While his father favoured painting big canvasses holding prestigious hunting trophies, especially large birds (swans, herons, peacocks), Jan preferred painting common birds (sparrows, bullfinches, song thrushes or ducks) on smaller sized panels. These birds are either laying on a ledge or hanging from a rope.

 

Occasionally he also made some fish still lifes, which stand close to Abraham van Beyeren (The Hague 1620/21 – 1690 Overschie).

 

There are also a few landscapes with a dog and birds, vaguely reminding of Abraham Hondius (Rotterdam 1625 – 1691 London).

 

Both Elias and Jan have painted animals in landscapes by Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael (Haarlem 1628/9 – 1682 Haarlem); Jan in a painting now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister of Dresden.

 

Judging by the number of paintings by Jan Vonck mentioned in contemporary Amsterdam inventories his art must have been popular. 

By the late 1650s however fashion changed towards more luxurious and elegant game still lifes by Willem van Aelst and Melchior de Hondecoeter.

 

 

Because it is an interesting hunting still life with a falconer.