Few facts are known about the life of Johannes Pietersz. Schoeff. The year of his birth has been estimated to have been 1608 or 1609, based on the date of his marriage in 1639 to Cornelia Melaenen in The Hague, for there his age is given as thirty. He possibly spent his youth in Antwerp, for in 1624 a 'J. Schoeff' is listed there as the pupil of an unnamed master. Together with his father, the jeweller and art dealer Pieter Schoeff, the painter lived beginning in 1639 on the Bierkade in The Hague, a close neighbour of Jan van Goyen. Three years later he acquired citizenship there. With his first wife he had six children. He entered into his second marriage, with Anna Mailliaerts from Antwerp, on 16 September 1649. In 1659 Schoeff is documented to have suffered a serious illness. From 1657 on, the painter lived in Bergen op Zoom, where he presumably died. The precise date is unknown; his name is last documented in 1666. Schoeff concentrated almost exclusively on landscapes, which are clearly influenced by Jan van Goyen. There were also personal connections between the two painters. In 1647 they collaborated on an auction with several paintings. Most of Schoeff's dated works come from the years 1640 to 1654.
