Jan van den Hecke the Elder (1620–1684)

• Was a Flemish Baroque painter, draughtsman, printmaker and engraver.
• Van den Hecke was born in Kwaremont near Ronse, about 10 km from Oudenaarde, East Flanders.
• He was registered in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as an apprentice in 1636.
• He was a pupil of Abraham Hack, who also taught his contemporary, the flower painter Hieronymus Galle.
• He became a master in the Antwerp Guild in the year 1641–1642.
• He travelled to Italy, and spent a period in Rome.

• Van den Hecke spent time in Brussels in the mid 1650s.

• At this time he may have worked for Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, the Austrian governor of the Spanish Netherlands.

• Van den Hecke returned to Antwerp around 1657. 

• In 1660, van der Hecke married Maria Adriana Heyens, with whom he had three children.

• His son, known as Jan van den Hecke the Younger, was born in 1661 and became a painter.

• Van den Hecke's two known pupils were Peeter vander Elstraeten and Peeter de Clerc. 

• Van den Hecke died in Antwerp in 1684.

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