
Why Jeremias van Winghe matters
Jeremias van Winghe is a minor but documented figure in the shift of Flemish painting from court portraiture toward the genre and still-life traditions that took root in Frankfurt am Main and, soon after, the Dutch Republic. Trained first in his father's Brussels workshop and later with Frans Badens in Amsterdam, he worked as a painter of portraits, genre scenes, kitchen interiors, and still life. For a collector, he represents the kind of Old Master whose significance lives mostly in scholarship, provenance, and museum comparanda rather than in a deep auction record, since public sales securely attributed to him are rare and his confirmed oeuvre is small.
- Nationality
- Flemish
- Media
- Painting, Drawing
- Movement
- Flemish Baroque, Netherlandish genre painting
- Education
- No academy training documented. Apprenticed to his father, Joos van Winghe, in Brussels and later Frankfurt am Main; studied with Frans Badens in Amsterdam after 1603; an undocumented period of study and travel in Italy is also recorded.
- Signature motifs
- Kitchen interiors, Portraiture, Genre still life
By the numbers
- EUR 6,080Highest documented salePhineas kills Zimri and Cozbi, Im Kinsky, Vienna, 140th auction
- 1578 to 1645Active periodBrussels to Frankfurt am Main
- None publishedCatalogue raisonneAttribution relies on museum records and the RKD artist record
- Städel Museum, Frankfurt am MainMuseum holdingsTwo securely identified portraits
Selected works
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Biography
Jeremias van Winghe was born in Brussels in 1578, the son of Joos (Jodocus) van Winghe, a court painter to Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma. The family left the Southern Netherlands around 1584 to 1585 and settled in Frankfurt am Main, where Jeremias likely continued his training under his father. When his father died in 1603, he went to study with the Flemish painter Frans Badens in Amsterdam. Sources also record a period of study and travel in Italy, including time in Rome, though no exact dates or teachers are documented for this stretch.
Van Winghe eventually established himself permanently in Frankfurt am Main, where he worked as a painter of portraits, genre scenes, kitchen interiors, and still life. No catalogue raisonne of his work exists, and attribution relies on comparison among documented works and curatorial research rather than a single confirmed benchmark. The Städel Museum in Frankfurt holds two of his securely identified portraits, of Johann Maximilian zum Jungen and of Maria Salome von Stalburg. He died in Frankfurt am Main; most sources place his death in 1645, with one record specifying October 1645, though no source available confirms the exact day.
Critical reception
Scholarly attention to van Winghe centers on connoisseurship rather than critical debate. With no catalogue raisonne, his identity as a painter rests on comparison among a small number of securely documented works, and other paintings and drawings are accepted or qualified as "attributed to" him accordingly. Historians place him at a hinge point between his father's Italian-influenced Brussels court portraiture and the genre and still-life painting that flourished in Frankfurt and the Dutch Republic in the following decades. No verbatim critical assessment from a named critic in a major outlet could be confirmed in current sources, so none is quoted here.
Market
Van Winghe's market is that of a minor Old Master tracked mainly through auction databases rather than gallery activity. Artprice records roughly 17 auction results under his name. The best-documented sale in current records is Phineas kills Zimri and Cozbi, an oil on copper monogrammed by the artist, which realized EUR 6,080 including buyer's premium and Austrian VAT (hammer price EUR 4,750) at Im Kinsky in Vienna, part of the house's 140th auction, Collection Erna Weidinger. The exact calendar date of that sale could not be confirmed in available sources. Several works catalogued as "attributed to Jeremias van Winghe" carry considerably higher estimates at houses such as Artcurial, but no realized price above the Im Kinsky result could be confirmed across the sources checked, so it should be read as the highest confirmed sale rather than a guaranteed all-time record.
Top auction results
| Work | Price | Sale |
|---|---|---|
| Phineas kills Zimri and Cozbi | EUR 6,080 | Im Kinsky, Vienna |
Museum collections
- Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Authentication and provenance
No catalogue raisonne.
No catalogue raisonne exists for van Winghe. Attribution relies on comparison among documented works, chiefly the two portraits held by the Städel Museum, together with curatorial files and the RKD artist record. No single dated anchor work could be confirmed in current sources.
Primary reference: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/84936
What collectors should know
Because no catalogue raisonne exists, attribution for van Winghe depends heavily on comparison to documented museum-held works and on provenance, and buyers should expect a meaningful gap between "attributed to" estimates and confirmed realized prices. His surviving, securely attributed body of work is small and concentrated in a handful of European museum collections, so public sale opportunities are infrequent and pricing can be uneven from one lot to the next. Anyone considering a purchase should weight museum comparanda and publication history at least as heavily as the auction record itself.
Further reading and resources
Data current as of 2026-07-11.

