(b Gouda, 18 Mar. 1548; d Amsterdam, 5 Aug. 1616). Dutch portrait and history painter. He worked mainly in Gouda and Amsterdam, but also in France and in England (1573–81). Van Mander, who was well informed about him, mentions that he painted a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I for the Earl of Hertford in 1578, and this has been identified with a picture in the Siena Pinacoteca. Ketel's finest works are his group portraits (examples in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), which prefigure those of Frans Hals.