Hendrick van Balen Hendrick van Balen Hendrick van Balen or Hendrick van Balen I (c. 1573-1575 in Antwerp – 17 July 1632 in Antwerp) was a Flemish Baroque painter and stained glass designer. Hendrick van Balen specialised in small cabinet pictures often painted on a copper support. His favourite themes were mythological and allegorical scenes and, to a lesser extent, religious subjects. The artist played an important role in the renewal of Flemish painting in the early 17th century and was one of the teachers of Anthony van Dyck. Hendrick van Balen was born in Antwerp. The date of his birth is not
Daniel van den Dyck biographer Carlo Ridolfi's book on Venetian painters of 1648 entitled "Le maraviglie dell'Arte ovvero, Le vite degli Illustri Pittori Veneti and dello Stato". He was also praised by Marco Boschini in his "La carta del navegar pitoresco" of 1660, a panygeric poem about Venetian painting. Boschini dedicated two pages to van den Dyck and represented the artist in a print as "Jupiter embellishing Virtue with a royal mantle". Giovan Francesco Loredano, one of the founders of the Accademia degli Incogniti, a learned society of freethinking intellectuals established in 1630 in Venice, often ordered the illustrations for his multiple writings from