Daniel van Heil was a typical Brussels specialist of winter landscapes, often set outside the town, near the Sonian Forest and the current Bois de la Cambre. 

 

 

Flemish painter

Brussels circa 1604 – 1662 Brussels

 

Landscape painter.

Son of Léon I van Heil, whom nothing is known about.

 

Master in the Brussels Painter’s Guild of Saint Luke in 1627. 

He had six pupils between 1643 and 1660, amongst whom his own son, Théodore, who specialised in panoramic landscapes.

 

Our painter specialised in both warm and cold subjects. 

He painted either views of burning towns with magnificently rendered flames (be it contemporary views of Antwerp and Brussels, or mythological and biblical subjects set in Troy or Sodom and Gomorrah) or winter landscapes.

Occasionally he also painted Italianate landscapes with ruins.

 

Although the differences between both painters are obvious, confusion reigns between Daniel van Heil and the Dutch painter Dirck Verhaert, as both painters occasionally used the same monogram "DVH".

 

 

Because it is a small gem.