Jacob Huysmans

Jacob Huysmans[1] (c. 1633–1696) was a Flemish portrait painter who, after training in his native Antwerp, immigrated to England before the Restoration.

He became a feted court painter and attracted the patronage of the Portuguese born queen Catherine of Braganza, a Catholic like himself, of whom he painted several portraits.

[2] With his exuberant style, he was during his lifetime regarded as an important rival of the court painter Peter Lely who favored a more sober treatment of his sitters.

A number of his family members also became artists: he was the uncle of Cornelis and Jan Baptist Huysmans, both landscape painters.

Upon his arrival in England he did, however, rely on his skills as a history painter creating small pastiches of religious and mythological scenes by Anthony van Dyck.

[2] Even after having established himself as a portrait painter to the elite, he still painted history subjects and is known to have created religious compositions for his patron Queen Catherine of Braganza.

He liked showing the interplay of light, colour and contrasting textures, crumpled satin against porcelain skin or glossy ringlets interwoven with jewel-like flowers.

Huysmans had a preference for depicting his sitters in costume and with props placed in theatrical settings and including allegorical symbols.

Examples are the Family portrait of three aristocratic children with a sheep decorated with a floral wreath and a dog (At Dorotheum Vienna on 19 April 2016 lot 258) and the Portrait of Edward Henry Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield, and his wife Charlotte Fitzroy as children (National Gallery of Victoria).

[12] The latter work depicts Edward Henry Lee (1663–1716), a Catholic and Charlotte Fitzroy, the illegitimate and preferred daughter of Charles II and his mistress Barbara Villiers.

[15] His portrait of Queen Catharine as a Shepherdess (c. 1664, British Royal Collection) is one of his most famous paintings, and is the one which Pepys saw in his studio and had caused him to praise Huysmans abundantly.

[15] Another well-known painting by Huysmans is the Portrait of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, the famous rake, poet and courtier at King Charles II's court (The original auctioned at Sotheby's London on 9 July 2014 lot 42, a copy in the National Portrait Gallery, London).

Some art historians have posited that it should be read as a satire on John Dryden, the English poet with whom Rochester had a tense relationship.