Simon Luttichuys (1610-1662)

Simon Luttichuys (1610-1662) was a  painter born in London and the son of Dutch parents. He was a well sought-after Dutch Golden Age artist of his time painting portraits and still-life. A decade following Luttichuys relocation to Amsterdam in 1649, the London writer William Sanderson highlighted his extraordinary mastery of painting ‘dead-standing-things’, an early English term for the still life genre, by the Dutch painter named Little-House, a charming Anglicization of the artist's surname. There he continued to practise as a painter until his death in 1662 or 1663. He was probably the same person as Simon Littlehouse who painted a portrait of the bishop Thomas Morton of St. John's College, Cambridge in 1637/1638.( His name in Dutch sounds like Littlehouse). He painted portraits of James, duke of York, and Henry, duke of Gloucester, which were finely engraved by Cornelis van Dalen. Two good still-life pictures in the gallery at Cassel are ascribed to him. The prominent Leiden collector Francois de la Boë Silvius owned four still lifes by Luttichuys. Luttichuys was twice married, first to Anna van Peene and secondly to Johanna Cocks of Naerfick (sic) in England. After Luttichuys died, no less a figure than Willem Kalf finished one of his pictures and was also influenced by Luttichuys. His younger brother, Isaac Luttichuys (1616-1673) also practised as a painter.