Hans Bol

Hans Bol or Jan Bol (16 December 1534, Mechelen – 20 November 1593, Amsterdam), was a Flemish painter, print artist, miniaturist painter and draftsman. He is known for his landscapes, allegorical and biblical scenes, and genre paintings executed in a late Northern Mannerist style.

After a successful career in Flanders, he left his home country for the Dutch Republic during the Siege of Antwerp. His landscape work had an important influence on the next generation of Dutch landscape painters. His prints after his own designs as well as those of Flemish masters such as Pieter Brueghel the Elder contributed to the spread of their themes in the Northern Netherlands.

Bol was born in Mechelen as the son of Simon Bol en Catherina van den Stock. He was a member of a family 'of good descent'. He received his first training in Mechelen from his two uncles Jacob Bol I and Jan Bol who were painters. He was apprenticed to a local canvas painter at the age of fourteen. He was trained in the local tradition of ‘water-verwers’ (water-painter) or ‘doekschilders’ (canvas painters). He travelled in Germany spending time in Heidelberg from 1550 to 1552. He returned to Mechelen in 1560 where he was admitted as a master of the Mechelen Guild of Saint Luke on 20 February 1560.

After the fall of Calvinist Mechelen to the Spanish in 1572, he left his hometown for Antwerp where he became a master in the local Guild of Saint Luke in 1574. In 1575 he became a poorter of Antwerp. When 10 years later Antwerp was besieged by the Spanish, Hans Bol left the Southern Netherlands in 1584 following in the footsteps of his brother Jacob, who had already left for Dordrecht in 1578. He travelled first to Bergen-op-Zoom where he had spent time before in 1578-1579. In 1586 he left for Dordrecht and then travelled via Delft to Amsterdam where he resided until his death. He died in 1593 of the plague.

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