Jacquemijntje Garniers

Jacquemijntje Garniers (c. 1590 — 8 September 1651) was a midwife, and possibly an amateur painter, from Ypres, West Flanders. She was widowed four times and had a total of four children, including the Dutch painter Gabriël Metsu. She was a city midwife in Leiden, in the modern province of South Holland, and also worked as an independent midwife. She died in Leiden and had silver objects and three houses in her possession at the time of her death.

Biography Garniers was born roughly in 1590, to Franchoyse Fremouts and Isack Garniers, in Ypres, West Flanders. She married Abraham Le Foutere on 5 June 1608, Foutere died around 1618, While she was married to Fermout, she moved to Dordrecht, Netherlands, and was trained there as a midwife. In 1624, Fermout died, Gabriël painted a portrait of Garniers, which was sold in 1845 in London. In 1632, she asked to become a midwife of Leiden again and was accepted, with her salary being sixty guilders, twice the amount it was before. Her fourth husband was Cornelis Gerritsz Bontecraey, a skipper, whom she married on 14 September 1636. Bontecraey died in 1649, and Garniers became a widow for a fourth time. Garniers did not marry again after Bontecraey's death, but the skippers craft paid her two guilders a week so that she could help care for the four children she had. Garniers was able to acquire enough money to have three houses and multiple silver objects in her possession. She died in Leiden on 8 September 1651.

It is believed that Garnier was also an amateur oil painter. Although no paintings made by Garniers have been found, it is suspected that she painted due to her second and third husbands being artists.