Jan Philips van Thielen

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Jan Philips van Thielen was a Flemish painter who specialized in flowers. He was born in Mechelen in 1618 and died in the same city in 1667. Van Thielen was the son of a minor nobleman and eventually assumed the title of Lord of Couwenberch. In 1631 or 1632 he began studying with his future brother-in-law, the history painter Theodoor Rombouts (1597-1637), and in 1641 he commenced his studies with the flower painter Daniel Seghers (1590-1661).

Van Thielen was made a master of the Guild of Saint Luke in Mechelen in 1660. He produced several dozen paintings in collaboration with other artists, by painting floral garlands around their portraits or other images. His collaborators include his brother-in-law Erasmus Quellinus, Nicolas de Largilliere, Frans Francken the Younger, Cornelis Schut and Cornelis van Poelenburch. His paintings are generally signed: I. P. Van Thielen. Rigouldts (after his mother) in the 1640s, I. P. Van Thielen after 1650, and I. P. Van Thielen Heere Van CouwenBerche on late works in the 1660s, after he had assumed the title of Lord of Couwenberch. Three of Van Thielen’s daughters became flower painters: Anna-Maria (b 1641), Francisca-Catherina (b 1645) and Maria-Theresia (1640–1706).

The Ashmolean Museum (Oxford), the Austrian Museum of Applied Art (Vienna), the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge), the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Ghent, Belgium), the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C), the Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan), Reiss Museum der Stadt (Mannheim) and the Uffizi (Florence) are among the public collections having paintings by Jan Philips van Thielen.