Bonnecroy was a common name in Antwerp, where several painters carried that last name. The most famous one was Jean Baptiste Bonnecroy (Antwerp 1618 – 1676 Brussels) who was an important painter of large town views; his father, Willem, was a cloth merchant and painting dealer.

 

There were at least two rare painters carrying the same first and last name, Sebastiaen Bonnecroy, active around the middle of the 17th century: one possibly in Holland, at or near The Hague and one in Flanders, in Antwerp.

 

- Of Sebastiaen Bonnecroy I there are two signed Vanitas still lifes known: one is dated 1641, 44 or 47, the second 1668. That second still life stands very close to late works by Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts, especially to the similar, but much larger (152 X 118 cm) trompe l’oeil Vanitas still life painted in 1668 in Copenhagen. Gysbrechts had an international career that brought him from Antwerp to Regensburg, Hamburg, Copenhagen and Breslau. Of Jean François de la Motte (circa 1635 – 1685/89), who was mostly active in (his birthplace?) Tournai, we also know some similar Vanitas still lifes.

In late 17th century inventories in The Hague there are two (today unknown) still lifes mentioned by Bonnecroy: a Vanitas still life in 1676 and a fruit still life in 1684. 

 

- Sebastiaen Bonnecroy II painted in 1657 a portrait of a priest for the Spanish Carmelite church in Antwerp (mentioned by J. De Maere and M. Wabbes 1994, P. 64). This must also be our painter; our very recently discovered painting is dated 1655. 

 

- But then, who was the Sebastiaen Bonnecroy (III?) who was admitted in 1662 in the Painter’s Guild of Antwerp as the son of a Master?