Joachim von Sandrart was a German painter, engraver, and writer on art. He was born in Frankfurt, but the family originated from Mons.At age 15 was so eager to learn more of the art of engraving, that he walked from Frankfurt to Prague to become a pupil of Gillis Sadelaar. Sadelaar in turn urged him to paint, whereupon he travelled to Utrecht in 1625 to become a pupil of Gerrit van Honthorst, and through him he met Rubens when he brought a visit to Honthorst in 1627, to recruit him for collaboration on part of his Marie de' Medici cycle. Honthorst took Sandrart along with him when he travelled to London. There he worked with Honthorst and spent time making copies of Holbein portraits for the portrait gallery of Henry Howard, 22nd Earl of Arundel. Afraid of political unrest and plague, he moved to Amsterdam with his wife in 1637. In Amsterdam he worked as a painter of genre works, and portraits. Though he rebuilt the old homestead, it was burned by the French. He sold it and moved to Augsburg, where he painted for the family of the Elector of Bavaria. When his wife died in 1672, Sandrart moved to Nuremberg, where he married Hester Barbara Bloemaart, the daughter of a magistrate there. This is where he started writing.