Flemish family of sculptors. Jan van der Steen (b Mechelen, 1633; d Mechelen, 1725) trained in his home town with Antoon Bauens ( fl 1616-46) but moved in 1653 to Antwerp and worked with Artus Quellinus the younger. He became a Jesuit novice and provided decorative work for the Jesuit church in Leuven (1659-66); this was in collaboration with his brother Jasper van der Steen, who became a master in Mechelen in 1666 and whose independent work included a rood screen with two altars for the church of Averbode Abbey (1668; destr.). Jan left the order in 1667 and visited England seeking work with his Mechelen colleague Frans Langhemans. Returning to Mechelen, he became a master of the Guild of St Luke in 1670, carving the marble choir screen for the cathedral of St Rombout in the same year. Both brothers worked in the town's Begijnhof Church in 1671, Jasper carving white marble angels for an interior portal and Jan making the stone and wood altar; Jan's rood screen with two altars for St Rombout's, carved in 1672-4, has also been attributed to Jasper. In 1679 Jan completed two white marble gates for the entrance to the ambulatory at St Rombout's (destr. 1812; fragments in Brussels, Mus?es Royaux A. & Hist.) and c. 1698 completed the altar of St Anne, which complements the altar of Our Lady, made by Langhemans with Jan's assistance at about the same time. Jan's work outside Mechelen included the tabernacle (1682-4) on the reverse side of the high altar in the St Niklasskerk, Ghent, and the wooden pulpit in the Begijnhof Church in Diest (c. 1671; also attributed to Jan Mason). He helped found a Flemish Academy of Fine Arts in Mechelen in 1684.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

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