Painters in the Reign of ^een Elizabeth. 237 



The whim took ; he repeated the pra6bice, 

 and they pretend, executed thofe fantaftic 

 works with great purity and beauty of co- 

 louring. In this manner he painted two 

 heads for the Sieur Van Os of Amfterdam ; 

 the firfl, a Democritus, was his own por- 

 trait ^ the other, of M. Morofini, in the 

 chara6ter of Heraclitus. The due de Ne- 

 mours, who was a performer Iiimfclf, v/as 

 charmed with the latter and bought it. 

 Another, was the pidure of Vincent Jacob- 

 fon, a noted Wine-merchant of Amfterdam, 

 with a glafs of renifh in his hand. As his 

 fuccefs increafed, fo did his folly ; his fingers 

 appeared too eafy tools ; he undertook to 

 paint with his feet, and his firil efiay he 

 pretended to make in public on a picture 

 of the God of Silence, That public, wh:* 

 began to think like Ketel, that the more 

 painter was a mountebank, the greater v/a$ 

 his merit, were fo good as to applaud even 

 this caprice. 



Ketel, like De Heere, was a poet too, 

 and wrote defcriptions of feveral of his own 

 works in verfe. He underftooA architec- 

 ture, geometry and perfpedive, and ma- 

 delled in clay and wax. He was living 



ia 



