Nicolaas van Eyck

[3] He was registered at Antwerp's Guild of Saint Luke as a pupil of the prominent genre and history painter Theodoor Rombouts under whom he started to study in the 1632.

Nicolaas van Eyck is principally known for his landscapes with soldiers and horsemen engaged in battle or resting.

[11][12] Such displays appear to have been common in civil parades of that time as can be seen in the Ommeganck in Brussels on 31 May 1615 by Denis van Alsloot, which includes a similar scene.

[12] A few of Van Eyck's compositions depict scenes of the civil unrest and war that took place in Flanders during the 16th century.

The Carmelite friar Petrus de Wolf who had joined the armed resistance on the city square is shown in the first canvas participating in the action.

In the second Petrus de Wolf can be seen after he has fallen in the hands of the enemy and is about to be killed by the English colonel Norreys.

[13] Van Eyck was one of the many Antwerp painters who collaborated on a Cabinet of Pictures (Royal Collection, England) by Jacob de Formentrou.

The inclusion in the art gallery's collection of a work by van Eyck depicting an equestrian battle (the second-highest canvas on the right side of the right-hand wall) shows that he was at the time considered to be a leading painter in Antwerp.