Peter van Halen

[5] He married Maria Bock or Bocx (died 1680) on 9 April 1644 in Baesrode (near Dendermonde), "without losing his civic rights", i.e. he was granted dispensation from the rule that deemed citizens from Antwerp to have renounced their citizenship when contracting marriage outside of the city.

[6] He must have enjoyed patronage at the highest levels as an Ecce Homo by his hand was inventoried in 1659 as the property of the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands.

In The triumph of Galatea, for instance, he relied on a copper engraving by Philippe Thomassin after a drawing by Jacopo Zucchi.

[8] He also painted the Plague of the Philistines at Ashdod (signed and dated 1661, Wellcome Library), which was inspired by Poussin's treatment of the same subject, which he may have known through an etching.

He shows an interest in some of the details, such as the death-cart and the large group of women and children, but does not pay attention to the faces of the figures whose expressions are more schematic.