Jan Ekels the Younger
1759–1793 · Dutch genre painter and draftsman
Jan Ekels the Younger (Amsterdam, 1759 – Amsterdam, 1793) was a Dutch painter and draftsman of genre scenes, best known for imitating the old masters, especially Jan Molenaer, Gerard ter Borch and Gabriel Metsu. His work shows how eighteenth-century Dutch genre painting reworked models from the previous century.
He was born in Amsterdam and baptized in a clandestine church on the Kalverstraat. He trained with his father, Jan Ekels the Elder. From 1776 to 1778 he studied in Paris, where he encountered French neoclassicism and the work of Jean Siméon Chardin. In 1781 he won the first prize of the drawing academy, which brought a medal and a book on painting and drawing by Gerard de Lairesse. In 1783 he travelled along the Rhine with two friends, visiting Düsseldorf, and the same year he was admitted to the Felix Meritis society.
He never married. After his mother's death he lived in an expensive hotel on the Nieuwe Doelenstraat, as her only heir. He died at 34, probably of a stroke, and was buried nearby at the Nieuwezijds Kapel.
His drawings include several male nudes. Two of his pictures, a young man drawing and a peasant lighting a pipe, are held by the Städel Gallery in Frankfurt.
Works (1)
Small oil on panel dated 1784 by Jan Ekels and held by the Rijksmuseum. It shows a writer trimming the tip of his quill, an everyday gesture of the craft of writing. As a genre scene, it focuses attention on a simple domestic action rather than a historical or religious subject.
Where to see the work
- Rijksmuseum Amsterdam · 1