Paul DeVos (follower of)

Born in the Flemish town of Hulst (located in the Netherlands today) around 1591, Paul De Vos belonged to a family of painters. His older brother, Cornelis De Vos, was famous for his portraits and history subjects, while his well-known brother-in-law, Frans Snyders, influenced De Vos' personal style and decision to paint mainly hunting scenes, still-life images, and animal subjects. De Vos began training in Snyders' studio sometime during the latter half of the first decade in the seventeenth century, and became a master in Antwerp’s significant Guild of Saint Luke in 1620.

De Vos never signed his work, so it is extremely difficult to build a chronology of his development as a painter. However, he was known to have regularly completed commissions for King Philip IV of Spain. His style was similar to Snyders’s, but De Vos’s color palette tended to be warmer, his brushwork looser, and he painted subjects, such as fighting cats, that Snyders never approached.

Though much remains mystery about De Vos’s personal life, it seems he may have counted the painter Peter Paul Rubens among his friends, as records show that Rubens was the godfather to one of De Vos’s ten children. De Vos collaborated not only with Rubens but also with Anthony van Dyck.