Beurs was born in
Dordrecht. According to Houbraken, he was the son of a shoemaker and a quick study who was able to produce a good landscape after only a year's instruction, though he later took up flower painting. Houbraken met him as a fellow pupil of
Willem van Drielenburg in 1671.[1]
Houbraken praised his book and reprinted one page of it as an example.[1]
According to the RKD he moved to Amsterdam in 1672 where he later married. In 1687 he moved to
Zwolle, where from 1688 he gave painting lessons from his studio and where he wrote a book on the art of painting that was published in 1692.[2] He dedicated his book to his four pupils
Aleida Greve,
Anna Cornelia Holt,
Sophia Holt, and
Cornelia van Marle.[3]
He is known for Italianate landscapes; still-life paintings are documented in archives but no longer known.[3] He died in Zwolle in 1700.
^Wilhelmus Beurs, De groote waereld in 't kleen geschildert, of schilderagtig tafereel van 's Weerelds schilderyen. Kortelijk vervat in ses boeken. Verklarende de hooftverwen, haare verscheide mengelingen in oly en der zelver gebruik, Amsterdam, published by Johannes and Gillis Janssonius van Waesberge, 1692