by painting secular compositions. He also painted group portraits. Together with Jan-Erasmus Quellinus, Boeyermans was one of the last important 17th-century Flemish history painters. His style was influenced by Rubens and van Dyck but he favoured a darker palette than those two artists. Even as a more expressive style was developing in Antwerp, Boeyermans retained a classicist approach in his work. At the same time he championed the more emotional style of van Dyck. His compositions show his sense of balance and repose and his facial types often represent a refined ideal of beauty. One of his allegorical paintings called Antwerp, Nourishing the Painters (1665, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp) is a tribute to the artistic history of Antwerp and was executed for the meeting hall of the Antwerp Academy, which had been founded shortly before in 1663 at the initiative of David Teniers the Younger. The painting was intended as ceiling decoration of the meeting hall of the academy for which Jacob Jordaens also donated two other ceiling paintings. Boeyermans' allegorical painting celebrates Anwerp's glorious artistic past. This past is represented by means of the portraits of Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, who watch over young students practising the arts. In the center is an allegorical female figure who represents the city of Antwerp and was according to some a portrait of van Dyck's wife Mary Ruthven. Chronos (Time) accompanies young students who present their artwork, while the river god Scaldis (a symbol of Antwerp's river Scheldt) with his cornucopia, symbolizes the wealth and bounty of the city's artistic heritage. A bust of Homer emphasizes the close link between Pictura (painting) and Poesis (poetry). In the 1660s Boeyermans produced another allegorical painting of Antwerp referred to as Allegory of the City of Antwerp (private collection). One of his last works represents The Hunt of the Calydonian Boar (1677, Musée de la chasse et de la nature, Paris) and is inspired by Rubens' treatment of the same subject (Kunsthistorisches Museum). The scene depicted centers on the killing of the boar by the hunters and hounds. While clearly inspired by Rubens, Boeyermans' originality is manifested in his simpler and more intense treatment compared to Rubens' violent whirlwind of people and animals. Boeyermans used in his composition a free and delicate technique but tightened his brush stroke in the details that contribute most to the understanding of the scene,