Johannes van der Beeck

Despite his reputation as a still life master, few of Torrentius' paintings survive, as his works were ordered to be burned after he was accused of being a Rosicrucian adherent of atheistic and Satanic beliefs.

[dubious – discuss] The tortured painter was thrown into prison as a convicted blasphemer until being permitted to leave the country as a political gesture for England's Charles I, an admirer of van der Beeck.

[1] His libertine ways and purported membership in the Rosicrucian order led to his 1627 arrest and torture as a religious non-conformist and an alleged blasphemer, heretic, atheist, and Satanist.

[citation needed][dubious – discuss] The 25 January 1628 judgment from five noted advocates of The Hague pronounced him guilty of "blasphemy against God and avowed atheism, at the same time as leading a frightful and pernicious lifestyle".

A series of experts (including Christopher Brown, Walter Liedtke and Martin Kemp) comment on the artist's technique and life story.