rival House of Orange in The Hague. He collaborated on the decorations in Huis Honselaarsdijk, the palace of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange near The Hague (now lost). Thijs married Constantia van der Beken on 19 March 1648. The couple had six daughters and four sons. His son Pieter Pauwel Thijs (1652-1679) followed in his footsteps as an artist but died young. After the death of his first wife he married Anna Bruydegom on 2 July 1670. Thijs played a major role in Antwerp's cultural life. He served as deacon and treasurer of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke and was the driving force behind the further development of the Chamber of rhetoric Violieren of the Guild. He was able to persuade the local playwright Willem Ogier to compose several works for the theater. Thijs trained his son Pieter Pauwel and was the teacher of Jan Fransicus Lauwereyssens. Work General Pieter Thijs produced allegorical and mythological compositions for the courts of the Southern Netherlands and the Dutch Republic as well as the local churches and monasteries. He was also in demand as a portrait painter by the court and the local bourgeoisie. In the past his reputation suffered because of misattributions of his work. As his style was close to that of van Dyck and the followers of van Dyck, Thijs works have often been attributed to van Dyck and artists working in the van Dyckian idiom such as Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert, Jan Boeckhorst and Erasmus Quellinus the Younger. With the rediscovery of the artist, works have been re-attributed to Pieter Thijs. As the styles of Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert and Thijs are very close, there are still disagreements about the attributions of some works to either artist. The main distinguishing features between the styles of the two artists is that Willeboirts Bosschaerts' work uses a looser brushwork and displays a distinctive humanity and sensuality in the figures, especially the female figures. Thijs, on the other hand, applied the paint more tightly and thickly, and his figures express their emotions with more decorum and contained theatricality. The influence of van Dyck on Thijs' style is due to his direct working relationship with van Dyck. Other possible influences are the works of slightly senior painters such as Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert and Gonzales Coques who were both early followers of van Dyck as well as Thijs' predecessors at the courts of Brussels and