Tobias Verhaecht (1561-1631)

• Was a Flemish painter.
• Tobias Verhaecht was born in Antwerp as the son of Cornelis van Haecht.
• His father must also have been an artist as Verhaecht was admitted to the Antwerp Guild of St Luke as the son of a master.
• Before 1590 he travelled to Italy and first worked in Florence where Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany was his patron.
• He then moved on to Rome where he was active as a painter of landscape frescos.
• He returned to Antwerp where he became a master of the Guild of St. Luke in 1590–91.
• Not long after he married Suzanna van Mockenborch.
• The couple had two sons Cornelis and Willem and one daughter Suzanna.
• His wife died in 1595 after the birth of their daughter.
• The year following the death of his first wife, he married Esther Pamphi, whose sister Maria married the battle painter Sebastiaen Vrancx.
• The couple had one more son and daughter.
• His second wife died in 1612.
• Verhaecht suffered more family drama with the death of his first-born Cornelis in 1614 and of his daughter Suzanna in 1623.
• Verhaecht was the first teacher of Rubens who studied with him around 1592 for about two years.
• His other pupils included his son Willem van Haecht, Jacques Backereel, Marten Ryckaert, Geeraert van Beemel, Adriaen Daep, Leonhard Cemp, Cornelis Bol, Pieter van den Hoeck and Abraham Matthys.
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