Jan van Essen
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Jan van Essen (c. 1640 in Antwerp – 1684 in Naples), was a Flemish painter known for his seascapes. After training in Antwerp, he worked in the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples.[1]
A pupil of Sebastiaen de Bruyn in Antwerp in 1659, Jan van Essen spent time in Turkey between 1665 and 1669 with the Flemish battle painter Pieter Hofman. He then went to Rome in Italy. He could be identical with Giovanni Vanes, a Flemish painter whose presence in Rome is recorded in September 1669.
In Rome he joined the association of mainly Flemish and Dutch painters called the 'Bentvueghels' (shortened as the 'bent'). The Bentvueghels admitted new members in a ceremony in which they were given a nickname, the so-called 'bent name'. Van Essen's bent name was 'Santruyter' or 'Zandruiter' (Horseman on the sand).[2] He was present at a dispute in Rome on 30 September 1669 or around 1670 and attended a farewell dinner in Rome organised by the Bentvueghels for the Flemish engraver Albertus Clouwet.[1]
He remained in Italy and died in 1684 during a stay in Naples.[2]
