Pieter Hofman

After training in Antwerp, he spent the rest of his career in Turkey and Italy where he painted cavalry battles and scenes from military life.

[2] He traveled in the company of fellow Antwerp painter Jan van Essen to Turkey where he resided in the period 1665–1669.

In 1675 he is recorded in Rome where he was a pupil or worked in the workshop of the Franc-comtois-Italian battle painter Jacques Courtois according to Italian art historian Luigi Lanzi.

In 1688 their son was baptized in the San Lorenzo in Lucina church, with the flower painter Carel de Vogelaer acting as godfather.

Hofman got the bent name "Janitzer" (Janissary, a member of the elite infantry units that formed the household troops of the Ottoman Sultan).