[3] His father was a merchant dealing in quills as was his grandfather who was also admitted as a master of the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp in 1573.

[4] His family included a number of artists such as his uncle Guilliam or Willem van Nieulandt (I) who was a painter and draftsperson.

[2] Another brother called Jacob van Nieulandt was born in 1593/94 in Amsterdam where he became an art dealer, painter, innkeeper and draftsperson.

[2] According to the early biographer Arnold Houbraken, Willem became in 1599 a pupil of Roelant Savery, another Flemish émigré living in Amsterdam known for his landscapes, still lifes and animal paintings.

[10] The violence of the Eighty Years' War had caused the decline of Antwerp's chambers of rhetoric (rederijkerskamers) which staged theatre plays in the city.

It is likely that the Antwerp chamber of rhetoric Olyftack (Olive Branch) commissioned Willem van Nieulandt to assist with the restoration of their meeting room and performance area.

On 25 September of the same year, together with Joan David Heemsen, he took the oath as an elder (hoofdman) of the resurrected chamber of rhetoric, and in November the performances of two of his tragedies, Livia, already completed in March 1614, and Saul, written shortly afterwards, began.

At some unknown time after this date he returned to Amsterdam where he published his final tragedy in 1635, which he had written in the two years before he left Antwerp.

[3] He created landscape paintings of views in and around Rome, most of them capricci of Roman buildings and ruins, often including a biblical or mythological scene or shepherds and travellers.

While his drawings were detailed and topographically accurate, his paintings usually consisted of fanciful capricci of Rome's architectural heritage often placing familiar monuments next to invented structures in imaginary landscapes.

[2] In May 1620 he won the prize for best poem at a rhetoric competition in Mechelen, writing under the pen name Dient uwen Al (Serve your All).

[2] In May 1620 he won the prize for best poem at a rhetoric competition in Mechelen, writing under the pen name Dient uwen Al (Serve your All).