Abraham Willaerts

Abraham Willaerts (c. 1603 - 18 October 1669) was a Dutch Baroque painter, mostly of marine and harbor scenes.

He travelled to Paris in 1628 where he worked in the workshop of the prominent religious and history painter Simon Vouet.

Among the paintings he produced were portraits of King Garcia II of Kongo, and Njinga Mbande, the famous queen of Ndongo and Matamba then allied with the Dutch against the Portuguese.

He had returned to the Netherlands in 1644, where he stayed with the prominent architect and painter Jacob van Campen at his castle Randenbroeck near Amersfoort.

His marine paintings closely follow those of his father as is seen in his Ships near a rocky shore (1647, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem).

[3] Despite Willaerts' six-year stay in Brazil and in Angola his compositions never treated specifically Brazilian or African subjects.