Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne (1628–1702)

• Was a Dutch Mennonite painter, linen-weaver, and writer.
• Van der Vinne was born, lived and worked in Haarlem.
• He was a student of Frans Hals for nine months in 1647.
• In 1649 he became a member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke.
• In 1652 he left on a Grand Tour through Germany, Switzerland and France.
• For part of the trip he was accompanied by fellow painters Dirck Helmbreker, Cornelis Bega, Joost Boelen, and Guillam Dubois.
• The purpose of a grand tour in those days was Italy, but van der Vinne never made it there.
• Since Karel van Mander published his Schilder-boeck in Haarlem in 1604, most young Haarlem painters wanted to see the Italian paintings in real life, and it became a common rite of passage, but not without dangers.
• Van der Vinne endured many hardships on his journey, including being kidnapped for a short period.
• He even stopped making sketches of the countryside at one point, because he feared to be mistaken for a military surveyor.
• Judging from a map of his travels, he seemed daunted by the Alps, skirting them for weeks but never making the crossing, despite what appears to be 3 attempts to cross over to Turin.
• He finally returned to Haarlem in 1655 and married Anneke Jansdr de Gaver in 1656.
• It was at this time that his portrait was painted by Frans Hals, probably as half of a pair of wedding portraits.
• When she died in 1668, he was left with four young children; Laurens, Maeijke, Jan, and Isaac.
• His sons all became successful painters.
• In 1668 he remarried, to Catalijntje Boeckaert, with whom he had four more children who died in infancy.
• In 1676 he became a member of the fire department.
• In 1689 he became deacon of the Haarlem Mennonite community known as "de Blok".
• The Vincent van der Vinne diaries, accompanied by modern commentary were published in Dutch in 1979.
• When Van der Vinne died he left a will of 20 pages, and among several properties, he owned paintings by Karel van Mander, Hans Gillisz. Bollongier, Pieter Claesz, Guillam Dubois, and by himself and his sons.
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