Jacob probably apprenticed with the Flemish Mannerist painter Hans Bol as was reported by the early biographer Karel van Mander.

[3] As Anabaptists, the Savery family was forced to leave their native Flanders for fear of Spanish persecution c.

[4] He was the teacher of Joos Goeimare, his brother Roelant Savery (who became more famous because he was court painter at the imperial court in Prague), Frans Grebber (then a promising young painter and tapestry worker in Haarlem) and Willem van Nieulandt II.

[3] Jacob’s earliest known works of 1584–6 are mostly cabinet-size landscapes that clearly show the influence of his master Hans Bol.

He produced a series of etchings in Pieter Bruegel the Elder's stipple technique depicting idealized rural scenes full of picturesque details, such as castle ruins and rabbit hunts.

Savery also painted landscapes that were influenced by Gillis van Coninxloo who worked in Amsterdam from 1595.