Biography

Thomas Willeborts Bosschaert was born in Bergen op Zoom in 1613 or 1614 and died in Antwerp on 23 January 1654. He was the son of Peter Willeboirts and Cornelia Thomas and the brother of Maria Willeboirts Bosschaert; he appears to have remained unmarried throughout his life. After an apprenticeship in Antwerp with Gerard Seghers, recorded for the guild year 1628–29, he was admitted as a master to the Guild of St Luke in 1636-37; he also became a poorter of the city on 7 August 1637.

From the early 1640s he developed a sustained relationship with the court of the stadtholder in The Hague, for which he produced at least thirty paintings. His contact with the court was mediated by Constantin Huygens, to whom eight letters from Willeborts written between 1641 and 1649 are preserved; he probably travelled briefly to The Hague in October 1641. He continued to work for the court for nearly a decade.

In 1650 Willeborts purchased the house De Bok in the Arenbergstraat, formerly the workshop of Jan Brueghel the Elder. Around the same time he executed several paintings for the monastery of Fuensaldaña in Spain, as noted by Díaz Padrón. Between 18 September 1650 and 17 September 1651 he served for the first time as dean of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke. He drew up three wills between 1652 and 1654, ultimately leaving all his drawings—now largely lost—to his apprentice and personal assistant Jan van Erlewyn.