John Verelst (1648-1679)

Information about John Verelst's artistic career comes mainly from one source: a response to previous legal cases in which John was sued by his brother, Simon.^[8] This and other information gathered by piecing together his movements gives a fairly precise outline of his career.^[9]

John was trained in The Hague by his father alongside his brothers Herman and Simon, mainly on fruit and flower pieces painted on paper and pasteboard. By 1667, John had moved to Amsterdam and his father sent him a collection of about ninety of these training pictures for a reason unclear. With the collapse of the art market in the Low Countries, John travelled to Paris, leaving the training pieces with Herman Verelst. (Herman seems to have abandoned the collection when he moved to Italy a few years later.)

By 1672, John had left France and was resident in London where he married. Simon Verelst was already well-established as an artist and, from the court case, it seems that John worked for or with Simon on producing pieces bearing Simon's name, agreeing to produce no work under his own name or for others.^{[8]: lines 17–19} The arrangement turned sour. Simon saw John as a competitor; John saw Simon as attempting to suppress his reputation. John claimed that his skills had begun to eclipse those of Simon, he having "grown to some perfection in the said Art and as many beleive [sic] exceeding the said Symon in skill & Art therein & haveing [sic] thereby the Custom of many persons of honour & quality".^{[8]: lines 15–16} John claimed that Simon finished the working relationship, threatening to have John imprisoned or forced to leave England. Then in Easter term 1676, Simon sued John for the collection of training pieces (which had been abandoned in Amsterdam several years earlier), claiming their value to be £1,050. John's counter claim was that the collection consisted of twenty pieces worth no more than £40 and that Simon's case was based on malice due to Simon's perception of a threat to his reputation. The court awarded £500 and costs to Simon in 1677 which John seemingly did not pay.^[d] John's career thereafter is uncertain. The delayed baptism of his son may be evidence that he was outside of England in early 1679 before returning to London where he died in April of that year; equally John may have stayed in England but other factors may have led to the delay in the baptism.

There is no art work that can be confidently attributed to John. ‘’A Conversation of Gentry’’ was auctioned in 1690 as by "John Verelst" and "A piece of Nymphs by John Verelst" in 1691.^{[11]: lot 49 [12]: lot 117} Either or both could have been by his nephew John Verelst (1670-1734) at the beginning of his career.

Writing in 1722, George Vertue noted that he had seen in the collection of Mr Broderick "a fine large bunch of white grapes painted by J. Verelst at Hampton Court for K. Charles, not woolly but transparent and finely pencilld". If Vertue's comment is correct, this piece must have been commissioned or completed before the death of King Charles II in 1685.^[13]

Given that John Verelst was working (anonymously) for Simon Verelst before the court case of 1676 and that he died in April 1679, there were no more than four years for John Verelst to leave a corpus of work, assuming that he was able to paint during that time.^[9]