Jan Victors (1619 – 1679),

was a Dutch Golden Age painter mainly of history paintings of Biblical scenes, with some genre scenes. He was described in a Haarlem tax listing in 1722 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. 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 ("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. (crop: The Angel Taking Leave of Tobit and His Family 1649)