Pieter Boel or Peeter Boel (baptized on 10 October 1622 – 3 September 1674) was a Flemish painter, printmaker and tapestry designer. He specialised in lavish still lifes and animal paintings. He moved to Paris, where he worked in the gobelin factory and became a painter to the king. Pieter Boel revolutionized animal painting by working directly from live animals in a natural setting. He thus arrived at representations of animals showing them in their natural, characteristic poses. He had many followers in France.
Life
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.
He is believed to have traveled to Italy in the 1640s or in 1651. His trip brought him to Genoa and Rome. In Genoa he stayed with fellow Antwerp painter and art dealer Cornelis de Wael who was a long-term resident that city and played a pivotal role in giving Flemish artists arriving in Genoa an opportunity to work. Boel later married de Wael's niece upon his return to Antwerp.
Upon his return to Antwerp, where he was registered in the local Guild of Saint Luke as a wijnmeester (wine master) (a title reserved for the children of members of the guild) in 1650–51. He married Maria Blanckaert, daughter of the painter Jan Blanckaert. His wife's mother was a sister of the painters and art dealers Cornelis de Wael (whom he knew from Genoa) and Lucas de Wael. Two of the couple's sons Jan Baptist Boel the Younger and Balthasar-Lucas Boel became artists.
By 1668–1669 he had moved to Paris where he formed part of the group of Flemish artists who had congregated around Charles Le Brun and resided at the Hôtel Royal des Gobelins. The court painter (Premier peintre du roi) Charles Le Brun had been put in charge of the Gobelins Manufactory, the royal tapestry works created in 1663 as well as the decoration of the various new buildings being constructed for the King. To realize these projects Le Brun surrounded himself with a large group of artists including a number of Flemish artists such as the sculptor Gerard van Opstal and the painters Adam Frans van der Meulen, Abraham Genoels, Adriaen Frans Boudewijns and Peter van Boucle. As a resident of the Hôtel Royal des Gobelins, Boel could practice his art without having to register with the local Guild of Saint Luke or the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. On three occasions, his name appears in the Comptes des Bâtiments du Roi (Accounts of the Royal Buildings), including for providing designs for the Gobelins tapestry works. Boel was closely related to two Flemish artists, who also lived at the Gobelins: Adam Frans van der Meulen and Gerard Scotin, an engraver. In 1671 he was a witness to the wedding of Scotin. Van der Meulen's wife was the second witness. Scotin engraved a number of Boel's designs of animals and may also have been the publisher of engravings made by Boel himself.
He was appointed peintre ordinaire (ordinary painter) by King Louis XIV in 1674. As the king's ordinary painter, Boel was commissioned to create 'paintings of various animals to be used in the tapestries of the Gobelins Manufactory. He died on 3 September 1674 of that year. Adam Frans van der Meulen was a witness in the burial act.
He was the teacher of his sons and David de Koninck.
Work
Boel principally painted still lifes including flower still lifes, hunting still lifes, animal and fish still lifes, vanitas paintings and still lifes of weapons. He also painted some landscapes. Since most of his works are undated, it is difficult to establish a chronology for his work. Boel achieved a very high quality in his work. It is believed that a number of his compositions may have had their signature removed so that they could pass as works by Frans Snyders or his master Jan Fijt. Only recently a number of still lifes in museums, which were formerly given to Fijt, have been re-attributed to Pieter Boel.
Boel follows to a large extent the style of his teacher Jan Fijt, in particular in his smaller compositions featuring a hare or a few birds in the open air. Boel's compositions differ from Fijt's works in their restraint and the smoother and more controlled handling of the paint. His palette also differs from Fijt's in his preference for accents of blue, red and pink.