Balthazar van den Bossche

Balthasar van den Bossche (1681–1715) was a Flemish painter who is mainly known for his wide range of genre subjects and occasional portraits.

Balthasar van den Bossche was born in Antwerp where he studied under the Flemish genre painter Gerard Thomas, an artist who specialized in paintings of studio and picture gallery interiors. Van den Bossche became a master of the Antwerp Guild in 1697. He then travelled to France and maintained a studio in Paris for some time.

He had returned to Antwerp by 1700 and worked for an art dealer. At the same time he continued to paint with notable success. He had important patrons such as the Duke of Marlborough who visited Antwerp after the Battle of Ramillies in 1706. The Duke of Marlborough was so impressed by van den Bossche’s works that he commissioned him to paint a portrait of the Duke including the scene of a battle. Van den Bossche painted the portrait in collaboration with Pieter van Bloemen, a well-known painter of animals, in particular horses.

In 1774 Sir Joshua Reynolds referred to van den Bossche when writing about the French painter Antoine Coypel (1661–1722): 'The modern affectation of grace in his works, as well as in those of Bosch (sic) and Watteau, may be said to be separated by a very thin partition from the more simple and pure grace of Correggio and Parmegiano'.

The artist's successful career was cut short by his death in Antwerp in 1715. The portrait and genre painter Jan Carel Vierpeyl was one of his pupils.

While van den Bossche’s works include the occasional individual and group portrait, the bulk of his output explored the various genre subjects that had been introduced in Flemish and Dutch painting in the 17th century. The preferred subjects of his genre paintings were picture galleries and artist studios, which were also the preferred themes of his master Gerard Thomas. He also painted alchemists in their laboratories, guardroom scenes, conversation pieces, merry companies and doctor visits.

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