Jan Baptist van der Straeten

Jan Baptist van der Straeten[1] (c. 1671 – between 1731 and 1741) was a Flemish painter who specialized in architectural paintings depicting gallant companies amidst imaginary Renaissance and Baroque palaces and buildings.

[2] He became in 1685–86 an apprentice of the architecture and perspective painter Jacob Balthasar Peeters and was registered as such in the records of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke.

[2] Jan Baptist van der Straeten was a specialist architectural painter who created scenes with imaginary buildings and staffage referred to as capriccios.

His architectural fantasies depict opulent palaces amidst terraces, gardens and fountains with a typical Baroque love of exaggeration.

[5] Van der Straeten favoured a brown palette over bright colours thus giving atmospheric coherence to his compositions.