Marten Ryckaert

[2] David the Elder was a brewer and a painter of wooden statues who had become a master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1585.

[2] Marten had 7 siblings of whom his older brother David the Younger (born in 1586) became a prominent still life painter.

[9] He was reportedly a close friend of Anthony van Dyck, who painted his portrait showing Ryckaert dressed up as a king around 1630.

[10] His sparse surviving works mainly depict imaginary landscapes with forests, often with waterfalls, rocks, ruins, architecture and small human figures.

[10] This is particularly true for works from the period following his return from his presumed trip to Italy as Paul Bril's prints of Roman-style landscapes were widely disseminated in Antwerp at this time.

[8] His composition A rocky landscape with figures by an iron foundry has long been regarded as one of the oldest paintings of a blast furnace and refinery in Europe.