Gerard Seghers (1591-1651)

• Was a Flemish painter, art collector, and art dealer.
• Gerard Seghers was born in Antwerp.
• At the age of 12 he was enrolled as a pupil at the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp.
• Possibly he trained under Abraham Janssens, Hendrick van Balen, or Caspar de Crayer.
• In 1608, only aged 17, he became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke.
• In 1611 Seghers joined the Society of the Aged Bachelors, a fraternity for bachelors established by the Jesuit order.
• He left for a trip to Italy.
• Gerard Seghers was in Naples around 1611 where he worked for the Spanish Viceroy.

• He later moved to Rome where he worked for cardinal Antonio Zapata y Cisneros and the Spanish ambassador.

• In Rome he encountered the followers of Caravaggio.

• He likely also met up with the Dutch and Flemish Caravaggisti residing in Rome such as Gerard van Honthorst, Dirck van Baburen, and Jan Janssens, and possibly also Hendrik ter Brugghen and Theodoor Rombouts.

• Cardinal Antonio Zapata y Cisneros convinced Seghers to go to Madrid. 

• He traveled to Madrid in 1616 with Bartolomeo Cavarozzi and Giovanni Battista Crescenzi.

• He reportex later that in Spain he was in the service of king Philip III of Spain.

• He was back in Antwerp in the fall of 1620 and the following year he assisted Rubens in the decoration of the Saint Carolus Borromeus church of Antwerp.

• In 1621 Seghers married Catharina Wouters (d.1656) who came from a respected family.

• The couple would have eleven children of whom one, Jan-Baptist Seghers, also became a painter. 

• Seghers served as the dean of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1645.

• He had many pupils including his son Jan Baptist Seghers, Peter Franchoys, Frans Lucas Peters (I), Pieter Verbeeck (II), and Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert.

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