Jacob Denys

Jacob Denys or Jacob Denys (II) (1644–1708) was a Flemish Baroque painter. His known works are mainly portraits. He also painted landscapes and history paintings. After training in Antwerp, he worked for a long time in Italy where he enjoyed the patronage of Duke of Mantua, Ferdinando Gonzaga, and the Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de' Medici.

Life There has been confusion about painters called Jacob Denys as there are three painters with that name: a Jacob Denys (I) active in the second half of the 16th century, Jacob Denys (II) who is the subject of this article and an unrelated Jacob Denys (III). Jacob Denys (II) was born in Antwerp where he was baptized in the cathedral on 29 July 1644. He was the son of the prominent portrait painter Frans Denys and Martina Vleckhamer. Jacob was a pupil of his father and of the painter Erasmus Quellinus the Younger. Jacob is recorded in 1666 in Venice, Rome, Naples and Bologna. He settled that year in Mantua where he worked at the court of the Duke of Mantua, Ferdinando Gonzaga. His father joined him in Mantua in 1669 and became a court painter too. His father died in Mantua on 12 September 1670.

As a figure painter he collaborated on 'garland paintings'. Garland paintings are a type of still life invented in early 17th century Antwerp by Jan Brueghel the Elder and subsequently practised by leading Flemish still life painters, commencing with Daniel Seghers. Paintings in this genre typically show a flower or, less frequently, fruit garland around a devotional image or portrait. The Holy Family in a flower garland (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp) is an example of a garland painting on which Denys collaborated. In this work Daniel Seghers painted the still life elements while Denys added the figures of the Holy Family inside the cartouche. This potentially happened after Seghers had already died. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a drawing which is a design for another garland painting representing Diana and Endymion in a central artouche.