Jan Victors

Jan Victors or Fictor (bapt. June 13, 1619 – December 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter mainly of history paintings of Biblical scenes, with some genre scenes. He may have been a pupil of Rembrandt. He probably died in the Dutch East Indies.

Ruth swearing to Naomi, 1653

He was a conscientious member of the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church, and for this reason he avoided creating art which depicts Christ, angels, or nudity.^[1]

Biography

Victors was born in Amsterdam. He was described in a Haarlem tax listing in 1622 as a student of Rembrandt van Rijn. Though it is not certain that he worked for Rembrandt, it is clear from his Young girl at a window that he had looked carefully at Rembrandt's paintings. He was only twenty when he painted this scene, and the look of expectation on the girl's face shows a remarkable study of character.^[2] He seems to have abandoned painting well before the rampjaar of 1672, when, like many painters in Amsterdam, he fell onto bad times and took a position as ziekentrooster (lit. 'comforter of the sick'), a role as professional nurse and cleric, with the Dutch East India Company in 1676. He probably died soon after arrival in Indonesia, then the Dutch East Indies.^[3]

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  The Banishment of Hagar and Ishmael, 1635 Budapest.
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  Young girl at a window, 1640, Louvre.
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  Abraham and Isaac before the Sacrifice, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 1642.
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  Esau and the Mess of Pottage, 1653.
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  Allegory of Cornelis de Graeff as leader of his people: Cornelis de Graeff as Isaac with his wife Catharina Hooft as Rebecca with their sons Pieter and Jacob de Graeff as Jacob and Esau (1652)