HELST, BARTHOLOMAEUS VAN DER Dutch painter, born at Haarlem, and died at Amsterdam. He was the son of Lodenyk Lowys v. d. Heist, merchant and innkeeper. The artist is first mentioned in 1636 when he married Anna du Pire at Amsterdam. He was a pupil of Nicolas Elias. His first great picture is the portrait group of the regents of the almshouse of Amsterdam, dated 1637. Then follow two groups of civic guards dated 1643 and 1648 in the gallery at Amsterdam. Here too are the noble portraits of the burgomaster Bicker and Andreas Bicker the younger, completed in 1642. The portrait of Bicker's wife is in the Dresden gallery. He produced little or nothing besides portraits at any time, but founded, in conjunction with Nicolaes de Helt Stokade, the painters' guild at Amsterdam in 1653. His likeness of Paul Potter at the Hague was executed in His great work, "The Peace of Munster" (1648), in the gallery of Amsterdam challenges comparison at once with the so-called "Night Watch" by Rembrandt. But, great as the qualities of van der Heist undoubtedly are, he remains below the line of demarca tion which separates the second from the first-rate masters of art. His pictures number about zoo. At Amsterdam the four regents in the Werkhuys (165o), four syndics in the gallery (1656), and four syndics in the town hall (1657) are masterpieces, to which may be added a number of fine single portraits. Rotterdam, notwithstanding the fire of 1864, still boasts of five of van der Heist's works. The Hague owns four. Leningrad, on the other hand, possesses ten. The Louvre has four, Munich three. Other pieces are in the galleries of Berlin, Brunswick, Brussels, Carlsruhe, Cassel, Darmstadt, Dresden, Frankfort, Gotha, London, New York, Schwerin, Utrecht and Vienna. See J. J. Gelder, Barth. van der Heist (1921).