Pieter van Mol (1599 - 1650)

• Was a Flemish painter known for his history paintings of religious subject matter.
• He was court painter to the King and Queen of France.
• He was an apprentice to the painter Zeger van den Graeve in Antwerp from 1611 to 1622.

• He became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1623.

• It is possible that Pieter van Mol accompanied Rubens in 1625 when he visited Paris to execute the Marie de' Medici cycle.

• He set up a studio in Paris in 1631.

• In 1637 he became court painter to the King and he received the title of 'peintre ordinaire du roi' ('regular painter to the King').

• He received commissions from the French Queen Anne of Austria and was appointed 'peintre ordinaire de la Reyne' ('regular painter to the Queen') in 1642.

• On 19 February 1640 Pieter van Mol married Anne van der Burght in the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris.

• The couple had eight children, of whom Robert van Mol became a painter and engraver.

• In 1644 he is recorded residing among the circle of Flemish and Dutch artists active in Paris, which included Jacques Fouquier, Philippe Vleughels, Willem Kalf, Nicasius Bernaerts and Peter van Boucle.

• He worked at the court of Louis XIII. 

• In 1648 he was among the first artists to be invited to become a member of France's Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.

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