He spent most of his career as a painter in Rome, where he appears documented before 1633. There he became involved with the Bamboccianti movement, and shortly afterwards, he joined the Schildersbent confraternity, reserved for Flemish artists living in the city. Between 1636 and 1658, he remained in Rome, where he produced small-scale genre works. In these works, he depicted the everyday life of the lower classes of Roman society. Although he produced numerous imitations of Pieter Boddingh van Laer’s work, the true leader of the Bamboccianti, it was him who, in collaboration with Michelangelo Cerquozzi, transformed the nature of these compositions by diminishing the importance of landscape in favour of anecdote. Some of the finest examples of this style of painting can be found in the Museo del Prado, such as The Vihuela Player.
His greatest contribution to the genre lies in the depictions of carnivals in Rome, especially the work at the Museo del Prado, second only to Carnival in the Piazza Colonna (Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford). On multiple occasions he collaborated with other artists, including Viviano Codazzi and Gaspard Dughet, by adding the necessary figures to their vedute or landscapes. In addition, he collaborated with Andrea Sacchi on some works. Evidence of this fact is his stylistic evolution towards classicism, which is perceptible in some of his canvases – namely in The Hunt of Dido and Eneas (Musée Municipal in Cambrai) – and is corroborated by his admission into the Roman Academy of Saint Luke. From 1650, he stopped producing paintings of drunken scenes to dedicate himself to producing religious paintings for Roman churches and small devotional works commissioned by the city’s important families such as the Barberini. In 1658, he travelled to Turin to serve under Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy. His work as an engraver should also be acknowledged, evidenced in the production of covers of literary works such as La Poverta Contenta by Danielle Bartoli (Rome, 1650) or De Bello Belgico by Famiano Strada (Rome, 1647) (Pérez Preciado, J. J. en E.M.N.P, 2006, tomo V, p. 1549).