Govert Flinck

Govert Flinck (born January 25, 1615, Kleve, Brandenburg [Germany]—died February 2, 1660, Amsterdam, Dutch Republic [now in the Netherlands]) was a Baroque painter of portraits, genre, and narrative subjects, and one of Rembrandt’s most-accomplished followers.

Flinck first studied in Leeuwarden and later entered Rembrandt’s studio. As a painter of biblical and allegorical subjects, he at first modeled his style closely on Rembrandt’s, as, for example, in his Isaac Blessing Jacob (1638). Later he developed a more florid and oratorical manner, in which he appears to have been influenced by Peter Paul Rubens, as in the Allegory in Memory of Prince Frederick Henry (1654). Flinck’s most successful works were portraits, and he was especially successful in his group portraits—e.g., A Goldsmith and His Family and Celebration of the Civic Guard at the Signing of the Peace of Münster (1648).