Simon de Vos

Simon de Vos (20 October 1603, Antwerp – 15 October 1676, Antwerp) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and art collector. He started his career making small-format cabinet pictures of genre scenes, in particular of Caravaggesque merry companies. Later he switched to history painting, working on larger formats in a Flemish Baroque style which was influenced by Rubens and van Dyck.

Simon de Vos was born in Antwerp as the son of the dice maker Herman de Vos and Elisabeth van Oppen.

At only 12 years old de Vos started his art studies in 1615 with the eminent portrait painter Cornelis de Vos (1603–76), to whom he was not related. Upon completion of his training in 1620, he became at the young age of 17 a master in Antwerp's Guild of Saint Luke.

There is uncertainty about de Vos' movements after he became a master. It is possible that he stayed in Antwerp, where he may have worked in the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens. Alternatively, he may have travelled abroad. A stay in Rome is suggested by his early works, which show a similarity with the "low-life" genre paintings of the group of Dutch and Flemish painters active in Rome known as the Bamboccianti. An influence by the German painter Johann Liss active in Rome in the 1620s has been discerned in de Vos' paintings and may also be explained by a residence in Rome. In addition, on the basis of the attribution to Simon de Vos of a 1626 composition referred to as Gathering of Smokers and Drinkers (Louvre Museum, Paris) it is believed that de Vos resided in Aix-en-Provence in France in the mid-1620s.

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