Jean Baptiste Bonnecroy (Flemish, 1618 – 1676)
Jan Baptist Bonnecroy or Jean Baptiste Bonnecroy was a Flemish painter and engraver known for his large panoramic city views and marine paintings.
Jan Baptist Bonnecroy was born in Antwerp as the son of the cloth merchant Willem Bonnecroy and Antonetta de la Forterie. He studied art from an early age but renounced an artistic career at the age of 20 to enter a Franciscans monastery in 1638. He renounced his religious calling, however, and was married by the year 1642.
After he had become an orphan he was placed under guardianship. One of his guardians was the famous landscape painter Lucas van Uden. He entered into a contract of apprenticeship and was in 1644 enrolled as a pupil of Lucas van Uden. The next year he passed his master test and was registered as a painter in the records of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke.
In 1658 he bought a house in Antwerp, which he resold in 1662. He was still registered at the Antwerp Guild in 1665 but after that there is no trace of him in Antwerp. It is likely that he worked in Amsterdam and Brussels since he painted views of both of these cities.
He died after 1676 possibly in Brussels since a city view of Brussels by his hand shows Brussels in that year.