Jan Cossiers (1600–1671)

• Was a Flemish painter and draughtsman.
• Jan Cossiers was the son of Antoon, a watercolor painter, and Maria van Cleef.
• He was baptized in the Antwerp Cathedral.
• He received his first training from his father and then moved to the studio of the prominent portrait and history painter Cornelis de Vos. 

• He travelled to Aix-en-Provence in France in 1623, where he studied under the Dutch painter Abraham de Vries.

• He visited Rome where he is recorded in October 1624.

• He was back in Aix-en-Provence in 1626.

• Here he met Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, the famous humanist and close friend of Peter Paul Rubens.

• Peiresc recommended Cossiers to Rubens.

• Jan Cossiers returned to Antwerp in 1627.

• The following year he was admitted as a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke.

• In 1630 Cossiers married Joanna Darragon in the St. James' Church, Antwerp.

• He became the dean of the Guild of Saint Luke in 1640.

• On 26 July of that year he married for a second time to Maria van der Willigen.

• He assisted Rubens in 1635 in the decorations for the joyous entry of the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand. 

• He further assisted with Rubens' commission for decorating the Torre de la Parada, a hunting lodge of Philip IV of Spain near Madrid.

• Cossiers painted mythological scenes after designs by Rubens.

• Cossiers enjoyed the patronage of the governors of the Southern Netherlands such as Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand and Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria.

• He had many pupils including Jan Carel van Bremt, Grée Melsen, Jacques de Langhe, Jacques de l'Ange, Carel van Savoyen and Franciscus van Verbist.

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