called BACQUERELLI, William, a painter of history, was born at Antwerp, and was a disciple of Rubens at the fame time that Vandyck was educated in that school. When each of them quitted that master, and commenced painter, Backereel was very little inferior to Vandyck, if not nearly Backereel's equal. And this may be manifestly seen in the works of the former, which are in the church of the Augustine monks at Antwerp; where those two great artists painted in competition, and both were praised for their merit in their different ways; but the superiority was never determined in favour either of the one or the other. He had likewise a good taste for poetry; but, by exercising that talent too freely, in writing satires against the Jesuits, these ecclesiastics pursued him with unremitting revenge, till they compelled him to fly from Antwerp; and by that means deprived his own country of such paintings as would have contributed to its perpetual honour.—Sandart takes notice, that in his time there were seven or eight painters, who were very eminent, of the name of Backereel, in Italy and the Low Countries.