Background
January Baptist de Wael was born in a painting family in Antwerp.
January Baptist de Wael was born in a painting family in Antwerp.
January Baptist the Younger"s father was Lucas de Wael. After Lucas had returned to Antwerp, Lucas and Cornelis, who had remained in Genoa, established a lucrative business trading in art and luxury items between Italy and Flanders. In Genoa, Cornelis" workshop was the centre of the colony of Flemish artists who resided in or passed through the city.
Cornelis assisted them with their local integration, passed on recommendations to clients and formulated competition rules.
When Anthony van Dyck visited Genoa, he had stayed with the brothers and Cornelis was one of his closest collaborators in the city. Here he reportedly moved in the circle of the Bentvueghels, an association of mainly Dutch and Flemish artists working in Rome.
The exact time and place of his death are not known.
