Reinier VINKELES

Amsterdam 1741 - Amsterdam 1816

Biography



Active as a draughtsman and printmaker, Reinier Vinkeles was a pupil of the artist and actor Jan Punt and was admitted to the Drawing Academy in Amsterdam in 1762, becoming a director of the institution in 1765. The same year he undertook a trip to Brabant with the artists Jurriaan Andriessen and Izaak Schmidt, and five years later is recorded in Paris, living and studying with the engraver Jacques Philippe Le Bas. On his return to Amsterdam in 1771, Vinkeles embarked on a lucrative and highly successful career, receiving numerous commissions for book illustrations, topographical views, historical subjects, portraits and reproductive engravings. Indeed, it has been estimated that some 2,500 prints were engraved by the artist or under his direct supervision. Much of Vinkeles’s finest work may be dated to between 1760 and 1800.