Joannes van Houbraken
Joannes van Houbraken (c. 1600 – death date unknown) was a Flemish painter and art dealer who made religious scenes and allegorical genre pictures. He spent several years in Italy, living in Rome, then Naples, and finally Messina in Sicily, where he absorbed the work of the Caravaggisti.
When he returned to Antwerp, he traded with Italy, sending his paintings and other Antwerp-made items to Italian patrons. Details of his life are unclear, and he has been misidentified with other men of similar names. He was probably born in Antwerp, and his exact training is not known; earlier claims that he studied with Rubens or Matthias Stom are no longer accepted. He traveled to Italy in the 1620s like many Flemish artists of his generation and, in the 1630s, moved from Rome to Naples and then to Messina, where he learned from the local Caravaggist Alonzo Rodriguez and lived from 1631 to 1636.
In Messina he received a commission in 1631 for a Mary with child and St. Francis for the order of San Francesco dei Mercanti; part of this work was damaged in the earthquake of 1908. A work dated 1635 or 1636 is also in Messina. By 1652 he had returned to Antwerp, where he remained at least until 1661. He married, and his son Hector (Ettore) was born in Antwerp. Joannes sent paintings to Lisbon via Amsterdam in 1652, and with his son he shipped several items to Messina between 1655 and 1661, including brushes, watercolors, gilded sculptures, and a gold Virgin with diamonds and rubies. A signed painting dated 1657 may indicate he was in Randazzo that year.
Hector/Ettore later returned to Messina and married the daughter of architect Nicola Francesco Maffei; he also worked as a painter and dealer, though little is known about his oeuvre. Joannes’s other son, Nicola, was born in Messina. The family stayed in Messina until 1674, when they moved to Livorno after the Messina revolt. Nicola became a successful still-life painter who worked for local patrons and sent works around the country.
Joannes painted religious scenes and allegorical pictures and was influenced by the southern Italian Caravaggists, especially Ribera and Alonzo Rodriguez. His oldest known work is the Discovery of the bodies of St. Placidus and companions in Messina (now in the Regional Museum of Messina). He is also associated with a five-painting series The Five Senses in the Bellomo Palace Gallery, though the date is unknown. His Crucifixion with Mary, John, and Mary Magdalene (1657) shows a classical composition blended with the dramatic lighting of Caravaggio’s followers, resulting in intense, melancholic drama, cold colors, and strong light against a muted palette.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 00:09 (CET).