Joseph Van Aken

Josef van Aken, known in England as Joseph van Aken and Joseph Van Aken of Heacken (c. 1699, Antwerp – 4 July 1749 London) was a Flemish genre, portrait and drapery painter who spent most of his career in England. Initially successful in England with his fashionable conversation pieces and other genre scenes, he gradually specialised as a drapery painter. Drapery painters were specialist painters who completed the dress, costumes and other accessories worn by the subjects of portrait paintings. They worked for portrait painters with a large clientele. He was recognised as one of the foremost drapery painters active in mid-18th-century England and was employed in that capacity by many leading and lesser known portrait painters of his time.