He was baptized in Antwerp on 10 October 1622 as the son of Jan Boel and Anna van der Straeten. He was member of a family of artists. His grandfather Jeroom had been a painter who was registered as a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1620. His father was an engraver and his older brother Quirijn de Younger became an engraver. After studying drawing with his father he became a pupil of Jan Fijt, a well-known still life and animal painter. Jan Fijt had studied under the leading Flemish animal and still life painter Frans Snyders.