VALCKENBORCH, Lucas van

Valckenborch (or Valkenborch, or Valkenborgh), family of Netherlandish landscape and genre painters. The family was originally from Leuven but was one of many families who, for political or religious reasons, left the Spanish-occupied southern Netherlands and settled in the more tolerant German imperial cities, particularly Frankfurt am Main, where they often strongly influenced artistic developments. Of the 14 known painters in the family, only Marten van Valckenborch I, his brother Lucas van Valckenborch I and Marten’s sons Frederik van Valckenborch and Gillis (Egidius) van Valckenborch have so far been identified as significant from surviving works.

Lucas joined the Mechelen Guild in 1560 and in 1565 was in Antwerp. He married and had a son, Marten van Valckenborch II (b before 1566; d Vienna, 1597), also a painter, before fleeing to Liège to avoid persecution (he was a Protestant) in 1566 and then to Aachen, where his brother Marten I had settled. In 1574-5 Lucas returned to Antwerp and, in 1579, became court painter to the Habsburg archduke, Matthias, governor of the Spanish Netherlands in Brussels from 1577 to 1582 and later Emperor (reg 1612–19). He accompanied Archduke Matthias to Linz before settling in Frankfurt in 1593.

Lucas worked in the Bruegel tradition, and favoured the subject of the Tower of Babel. He also painted series of the Seasons, and his winter scenes are especially notable.