ABSTRACT
Working as a mediocre painter of landscape scenes which featured cattle was evidently not satisfying to Jan van Gool, and fortunately for the history of art he turned his attention to documenting the history of Dutch artists of his era. In his introduction to the work van Gool states that his anthology is the true continuation to that of Houbraken, and is highly critical of Jacob Weyerman’s earlier attempt to do so with his De levens-beschryvingen der Nederlandsche konstschilders en schilderessen claiming that it was full of lies. Van Gool imitates Houbraken’s model by incorporating lofty poetry in praise of particular artists, thereby adding variety and literary merit to his work. Van Gool acknowledges that Ruysch eventually superseded van Aelst on a technical level, but beyond that statement, the biographer places a gender filter on her abilities.
