Boudewijn van Offenberg
Boudewijn van Offenberg (1590–1653) was a Dutch Golden Age notary and merchant from Haarlem, and a member of the Haarlem St. George militia. He was born in Haarlem to Pieter van Offenberg, a cloth and wine merchant, and Maria van Loo. The family had ties to Antwerp and Wesel, and Hals family members were godparents to Boudewijn’s relatives.
In 1627 he married Beatrix de Laignier and worked as a merchant in Haarlem, Leiden, and Bad Bentheim. He served as flag bearer of the Haarlem St. George militia from 1612 to 1627, but had to resign when he married, because flag bearers were bachelors and Catholics were barred from such offices.
Frans Hals painted Boudewijn twice: in 1616 and in 1627. Beatrix’s father, Maximiliaan de Laignier, ran the Bank van Lening in Haarlem.
The couple lived on the Spaarne at house number 47, then moved to Leiden in 1642, living on Rapenburg number 14 until 1652. By 1652 Boudewijn became a stone merchant and moved again with his family to Bentheim, where he died in 1653. The death entry describes him as a stone dealer and mentions elephantiasis, though this may reflect a misdiagnosis or his weight at the time; he was 37 in his second Hals portrait.
After his death, Beatrix and their two sons moved to Oldenzaal, where Maximiliaan became a magistrate and Petrus a mayor.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 16:06 (CET).