Govert (or Govaert) Teuniszoon Flinck (1615 – 1660)

• Was a Dutch painter.
• Born at Kleve.
• He was apprenticed by his father to a silk mercer, but having secretly acquired a passion for etching and drawing, was sent to Leeuwarden, where he boarded in the house of Lambert Jacobszoon.
• Here Flinck was joined by Jacob Backer, and the companionship of a youth determined like himself to be an artist only confirmed his passion for painting.
• Amongst the neighbours of Jacobszon at Leeuwarden were the sons and relations of Rombertus van Uylenburgh, whose daughter Saskia married Rembrandt in 1634.
• Joachim von Sandrart, who visited Holland in 1637, found Flinck acknowledged as one of Rembrandt's best pupils, and living habitually in the house of the dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh at Amsterdam.
• For many years Flinck laboured on the lines of Rembrandt, following that master's style in all the works which he executed between 1636 and 1648.
• Flinck was introduced to the court of the Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg.
• He obtained the patronage of John Maurice of Nassau, who was made stadtholder of Cleves in 1649. 

• In 1652 a citizen of Amsterdam, Flinck married in 1656 an heiress, Sophie van der Houven, daughter of a director of the Dutch East India Company.

• Flinck died in Amsterdam on 2nd February 1660.

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