Jan Anton van der Baren

Jan Anton van der Baren (variations on the first name: 'Jan Anthonie', 'Jan Antonius', 'Jean-Antoine' and 'Johannes Antonius') (1615 – 1 January 1687) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman, priest and museum curator active in Brussels and Vienna. He specialised in still lifes of flowers and vegetables, some of which include an architectural background.

Jan Anton van der Baren was likely born in Brussels. He became court chaplain to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, the Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, who resided in Brussels. He accompanied the Archduke on his return to Vienna in 1656 and remained there until his death.

In Vienna he became director of the picture gallery of the Archduke, one of the most extensive art collections in Europe at the time. Van der Baren compiled an inventory of the collection in 1659, although he probably did not himself draft the German language inventory that he signed together with three other members of the Archduke’s court administration.David Teniers the Younger, who was the director of the Archduke’s collection while it was still in Brussels, painted the famous Archduke Leopold Willem in his gallery at Brussels. The painting includes a portrait of van der Baren (he is the third man from the right).

After the Archduke’s death in 1662, van der Baren continued to hold the offices of court chaplain and director of the picture gallery under Emperor Leopold I.

Van der Baren is regarded as an amateur painter since he did not paint professionally but was principally a priest and a court official. Not many works by his hand are known. There are 14 paintings accepted as authentic, some of them signed and dated. Most of the works are still lifes.

The 1659 inventory of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm's collection shows that it included 12 works by van der Baren. The works of van der Baren in the collection comprised, besides still lifes, some architectural and park landscapes. To date no examples of works other than still lifes have been attributed to van der Baren. Some of his known still lifes include an architectural background (such as the Still Life with Pumpkins in the Kunsthistorisches Museum) or a landscape view (such as A Seascape within a Garland of Fruit in the Powis Castle and Garden, Powys, Wales, National Trust).

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