Maybe some Talented Mr. Ripley stuff was all just a part of Jan de Baen's grand plan.

Pretty much every important person in Jan's life died before he did. Jan was orphaned at just 3-years old. His uncle, a magistrate and painter named Heinrich Pieman, took him in and gave him his first painting lessons. The uncle died after Jan moved to Amsterdam to apprentice in a painter's workshop. Then his master dies and he, perhaps Darth Vader like, became the master. 

Jan knew how to give the people what they wanted. He brought the bacon home doing portraits of the rich and the famous, mostly because he always made sure to make people look real good. William of Orange liked the way he looked at the hands of de Baen. King Charles II of England must have liked it more, because he called the painter across the English Channel for some good ol' court painting. Jan lived in London for a few years before returning to The Netherlands, marrying, and having eight kids. One of the kids, Jacobus, became a successful painter in his own right before, you guessed it, dying.

It it just might be that what made him so popular in the 18th century makes him so largely unpopular today. Dutch portraiture around the time of de Baen was dominated by Rembrandt and Frans Hals. In particular, Dutch portraits are relied on now as a way to understand Dutch society as a whole. And most painters, basically those that by the transitive property can neither be Rembrandt nor Frans Hals, like de Baen, are looked on as adequate at best. De Baen, in particular, is relegated to the 'meh' pile because he kissed too much ass in his portraits without giving us modern folk the real dirt we hope for.

Orphaned, but taken in and raised by an uncle who happened to be a painter.

Made it big as a portrait painter to the rich and famous, including Jan de Witt (numero uno Dutch politician), King Charles II of England, and William III of Orange, king of both the Netherlands and of England.

He taught his son Jacobus to paint, but unfortunately Jacobus died when he was only 27. So both his parents and his son died prematurely, while Jan de Baen himself lived to the ripe old age of 69.