Isaack van Ruisdael

Isaack van Ruisdael was born in Naarden in the Dutch Republic in 1599.

[1] According to Arnold Houbraken he was the teacher of Isaac Koene, and, assuming Houbraken meant Isaack when he referred to the father of Jacob, he was a woodworker specialized in making fancy ebony frames for mirrors and paintings.

[2] Isaack sent his sons to learn Latin and medicine, and they both became landscape painters, specialized in ruis-daal, or trickling water through a dale, after their name.

[2] According to the Netherlands Institute for Art History (Dutch abbreviation, RKD), Houbraken confused the members of the family Ruysdael.

[1] Isaack and Salomon changed their name from Gooyer to Ruisdael when they moved to Haarlem, where they both became landscape painters, though it is also possible that Isaack kept doing business in picture frames, since at the time they were painting, there was a high demand for painter's panels and frames in Haarlem.