Jan van Essen, was a Flemish Baroque landscape painter.
According to Houbraken, who called him by his bentname "Zantruiter", he travelled with the painter Pieter Hofman ("Janitzer") in Turkey. He was known as a landscape painter.
According to the RKD he was a pupil in 1659 of the painter Sebastiaen de Bruyn. He joined the bentvueghels with the nickname "Santruyter", a name shared by Jan Oly. He is possibly the same person as "Giovanni Vanes, pittore fiammingo" registered as having been in a fight in Rome on 30 October 1669.
