Peter Wtewael, who became a painter; their other son, Jan (1598–1652), may also have been a painter as, unlike Peter, he registered with the guild, in 1639 after his father's death. Joachim von Sandrart, visiting Utrecht in 1626, complained that Peter and his father neglected painting for the flax business. In the portraits by Joachim of his two sons, Peter is shown as a painter and Jan as a "humanist", carrying a book. Peter died a wealthy man in 1660, having remodelled the family house in 1639, the year after his father died. In the late 1620s Joachim painted portraits of both his sons, dated 1628, his daughter Eva (1607–1635, see gallery) and a pair of his other daughter and her husband Johan Pater, dated 1626. All of these are in Utrecht. Burial records suggest several other children died young, but their birthdates are unknown. Wtewael's dated paintings stretch from 1592 to 1628, taking him from the age of 26 to 62. He was on the town council in 1610 and was later awarded a seat for life by the Stadtholder Maurice, Prince of Orange for his loyalty against the Remonstrants. However his brother was also rewarded in this way and Utrecht had a rule against more than one brother being on the council at any time. So he did not take up his seat until 1632, after his brother had died. Despite a reasonable amount of documentary records, the leading scholar of his work has written that "Wtewael the man is essentially inscrutable". Style and reception Development He trained with the Haarlem Mannerist Joos de Beer, who also trained Abraham Bloemaert, also from Utrecht and born the same year as Wtewael. Bloemaert's later career in Utrecht contrasted strongly with Wtewael's in that he was an important teacher, with whom most of the Utrecht Caravaggisti trained at least for a while. He also changed his style significantly, reflecting newer influences from Italy and the Netherlands itself. In contrast, apart from his son Peter, Wtewael had only three recorded painting apprentices, and was without any assistance for long intervals. They were probably little help in producing his small works on copper, and none of them become well-known. Wtewael was thus one of the founding generation of Utrecht painting; previously the city had been a centre for sculpture, as befitted a city governed by its bishop, but not known for painting. While