Jacob van Huysum (1688 – 1740) was an 18th-century botanical painter from the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...

who moved to the

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in 1721. Van Huysum was baptized 25 February 1688 in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

.Jacob van Huysum
in the

RKD The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...

Both his father Justus van Huysum (1659–1716), and his brother Jan van Huysum (1682–1749), were celebrated flower painters. His manner of painting was very like that of his brother. One source says that “his chief merit was in copying so well his brother Jan’s pictures, that his copies have been mistaken for original works by Jan.” Another art historian states that while his work is less finished and less delicately colored than Jan’s, his paintings still have “great merit” in their own right. His approach to botanical illustration, while preserving botanical accuracy, captured a more painterly aspect of his subject. This contrasts with the meticulously exact mode of

Georg Dionysius Ehret Georg Dionysius Ehret (30 January 1708 – 9 September 1770) was a German botanist and entomologist known for his botanical illustrations. Life Ehret was born in Germany to Ferdinand Christian Ehret, a gardener and competent draughtsman, a ...

, his contemporary colleague. Jacob arrived in England in about 1721, and for a while lived in the house of his patron, Mr. Lockyear of

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. Later he enjoyed the patronage of Sir

Robert Walpole Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (; 26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745), known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British Whigs (British political party), Whig statesman who is generally regarded as the ''de facto'' first Prim ...

, who befriended him, and commissioned him to paint decorative works for his house at Houghton in

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

. More importantly he produced most of the 50 illustrations for John Martyn's ''Historia Plantarum Rariorum'' (London: 1728-38), and all the drawings for ''Catalogus Plantarum'', an index of trees, shrubs, plants and flowers (London: 1730). His pupil was Louis Fabritius Dubourg. ''Historia Plantarum Rariorum'' depicted plants from the

Chelsea Physic Garden The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries' Garden in London, England, in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries to grow plants to be used as medicines. This four acre physic garden, the term here referring to the scie ...

and the

Cambridge Botanic Garden The Cambridge University Botanic Garden is a botanical garden located in Cambridge, England, associated with the university Department of Plant Sciences (formerly Botany School). It lies between Trumpington Road to the west, Bateman Street to ...

. These plants had come from the

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, the

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, and

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. Elisha Kirkall produced the mezzotint engravings. Each plate was dedicated to a patron and showed an engraved coat-of-arms or monogram. Besides van Huysum, other artists were William Houstoun, Massey, G. Sartorys, and R. Sartorius. The work was published in five parts of ten plates each between 1728 and 1737, and was sold by subscription. The venture was not a financial success and publication ceased in 1737.

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Donald Heald
Image:Historia Plantarum Rariorum00.jpg, {{DEFAULTSORT:Huysum, Jacob Van 1688 births 1740 deaths 18th-century Dutch painters 18th-century Dutch male artists Painters from Amsterdam Emigrants from the Dutch Republic Immigrants to the Kingdom of Great Britain Dutch male painters Dutch flower artists Huysum family of painters

See also

References

External links