Explore: Cornelis Bol

(c.1589 - after 1666)

Cornelis Bol was born in Antwerp. He was a pupil of painter Tobias Verhaecht. By 1611 he was in Haarlem, where he may have studied under marine artist Hendrick Vroom. In 1615 Bol was a master at the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp. He often travelled abroad and was living in Paris in 1624 and in London from c.1635. However, he was again active in Haarlem in 1637 and became a member of the guild there. He then returned to London, remaining from 1638 to c.1641. Engraver and antiquary G. Vertue records Bol’s paintings of ‘three views of London from the River side; Arundel house, Somersett [sic] house, Towner Lond [sic], Painted before the fire of London’, for diarist John Evelyn. In 1649 Bol re-joined the guild in Haarlem, where he later died.