Jacob van Loo(Sluis 1614 – 1670 Paris)

How to cite
Bakker, Piet. “Jacob van Loo” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. andLara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this biography is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed bya permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

Jacob van Loo was born in Sluis, in Zeelandic Flanders near Bruges, in 1614. His father, Jacques van Loo, was a notary.
He also spent part of his youth in Vlissingen and Middelburg.[1] We do not know who taught Van Loo to paint. According
to Arnold Houbraken he excelled at “painting nudes, and female nudes in particular.”[2] Because his conversation pieces
relate to paintings by Anthonie Palamedesz (1601–73) and Pieter Codde (1599–1678), one of them is presumed to havebeen his teacher. Nicolaes Moeyaert (before 1592–1655) is also mentioned in this context, as two copies after the work ofthis Amsterdam history painter are associated with Van Loo.
The possibility of an Amsterdam teacher gains further support from a 1635 document pointing to a stay in Amsterdam.
This document concerns a transaction between the art dealer Marten Kretser (ca. 1598–1670), an acquaintanceof Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69), and the bulb grower and art lover Jan Hendricksz Admirael. The two men agreed thatin exchange for two tulip bulbs and 180 guilders in cash, Kretser would give Admirael “ten paintings in keeping with thecontract made with Jacob van Loo listed.”[3] This document reads as though Van Loo had painted all these works.
However, another document related to this deal drawn up several days later refers to these paintings as “paintings byvarious masters.”[4]Van Loo was certainly in Amsterdam in 1642 when he transferred a bond to Hans Pietersz from London. In that same year
he became embroiled in an indecency case. In 1643 he married Anna Lengele (ca. 1618–56), the daughter of a notaryfrom The Hague and sister of the portraitist Martinus Lengele (ca. 1615–68), who was living in the Nieuwezijds
Achterburgwal, now the Spuistraat, in Amsterdam. Through this marriage, Van Loo became related to the famous Mijtens
family of painters; his wife’s mother was Anneke Mijtens (d. 1631).[5]The earliest dated painting by Van Loo is his portrait of Rutger van Weert and his family from 1644. That Van Loo
quickly made a name for himself as a portraitist in Amsterdam is apparent from the fact that William Frederick(1613–64), Stadholder of Friesland, en route from The Hague in December 1648, stopped in Amsterdam to pose for VanLoo before boarding a ship for Harlingen, Friesland. It is therefore not surprising that a year later, Constantijn Huygens© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Jacob van LooPage 2 of 4(1596–1647) included him and Jacob Backer (1609–51) as the only artists from Amsterdam to be considered among those
who would receive commissions to decorate the Huis ten Bosch near The Hague. However neither he nor Backer wasselected in the end. He was also not asked to work on the new Amsterdam town hall, although he seems to have hoped forthis commission. Despite having lived in the city for years, he did not buy his Amsterdam citizenship until 1652. However,the poet Jan Vos (1612–67) does mention him in 1654 in his oft-quoted Zeege der Schilderkunst alongside Rembrandt vanRijn, Govaert Flinck (1615–60), Ferdinand Bol (1616–80), and a select group of other artists who at that time were theleading painters in Amsterdam, most of whom did work on the town hall.[6] That Van Loo did not entirely lack official
commissions is borne out by the two group portraits of the regents and regentesses of the Aalmoezeniers Werkhuis inHaarlem, which he painted in 1658 and 1659.
In 1660, four years after the death of his first wife, an ailing Jacob van Loo drew up a will naming his six children as hisheirs and the painter Gerard Pietersz van Zijl (ca. 1607–65), their guardian.[7] Shortly afterward his life took a most tragic
turn when he fell out with the famously aggressive wine merchant Hendrik Breda. During the fight, the result of a longrunning disagreement, Van Loo stabbed the wine merchant in the abdomen. The man died on the spot. Van Loo did not
wait for his case to be heard, but fled with his children to Paris. After two failed attempts to get him to appear in court,
Van Loo was sentenced in absentia to eternal exile from Holland and West Friesland on pain of “execution by thesword.”[8]In Paris, Van Loo was reçu by the Académie Royale in 1663, having submitted a portrait of the painter Michel Corneille(1601–64), his morceau de reception, to gain admission. He died on 26 November 1670. His son, Abraham Louis van Loo(1652–1712), became the progenitor of an important line of French artists, including Carle van Loo (1705–65). Van Loo’s
only pupil from his Amsterdam period is the famous painter of elegant conversation pieces, Eglon van der Neer(1634/36–1703), whose work, however, bears no discernible trace of Van Loo’s influence.[9]- Piet Bakker, 2017

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Jacob van Loo
Page 3 of 4Endnotes
1. Unless otherwise noted, all biographical information on Jacob van Loo is taken from DavidMandrella, Jacob van Loo 1614–1670 (Paris, 2011).
2. “In’t schilderen van naakte beelden, inzonderheid vrouwtjes.” Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh
der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., Then Hague, 1753;
reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 3: 172.
3. “Thien schilderijen als blijckt bij het contract daeraf met Jakob van Loo gemaeckt.” Abraham Bredius,“Waarom Jacob van Loo in 1660 Amsterdam verliet,” Oud Holland 34 (1916): 49.
4. “Stucken schilderyen van verscheyden meesters.” N.W. Posthumus, “De speculatie in tulpen in de jaren
1636 en 1637,” Economisch-Historisch Jaarboek 13 (1927): 17–19; John Michael Montias, Art at Auctionin 17th-Century Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 2002), 73–76.
5. Onno ter Kuile, “Daniel Mijtens, ‘His Majesties Picture-Drawer,’” Nederlands KunsthistorischJaarboek 20 (1969): 18–19.
6. Jan Vos, Alle de gedichten van den poëet Jan Vos (Amsterdam, 1662), 125–41, esp. 140.
7. Abraham Bredius, “Waarom Jacob van Loo in 1660 Amsterdam verliet,” Oud Holland 34 (1916): 50.
8. “Metten zwaarde te werden geëxecuteert.” Abraham Bredius, “Waarom Jacob van Loo in 1660
Amsterdam verliet,” Oud Holland 34 (1916): 48.
9. See the biography of Eglon van der Neer in this catalogue.

Literature
Vos, Jan. Alle de gedichten van den poëet Jan Vos. Amsterdam, 1662, 125–41, esp. 140.
Houbraken, Arnold. De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen. Amsterdam,1718–21; revised edition published in The Hague, 1753; reprinted in Amsterdam, 1980, 3: 172.
Bredius, Abraham. “Waarom Jacob van Loo in 1660 Amsterdam verliet.” Oud Holland 34 (1916):
47–52.
Posthumus, N.W. “De speculatie in tulpen in de jaren 1636 en 1637.” Economisch-Historisch Jaarboek
13 (1927): 3–85.
Ter Kuile, Onno. “Daniel Mijtens, ‘His Majesties Picture-Drawer.’” Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek
20 (1969): 1–106.
Mandrella, David. Jacob van Loo 1614–1670. Paris, 2011.
Noorman, Judith. Art, Honor and Success in the Dutch Republic: The Life and Career of Jacob van Loo.
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Jacob van Loo
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Amsterdam Studies in the Dutch Golden Age. Amsterdam, 2020.
Mandrella, David. “Jacob Van Loo (1614–1670) et ses relations avec les Pays-Bas.” In Autour des Van
Loo: Peinture, commerce des textile et espionnage en Europe (1250–1830). Edited by Christine Rolland,97–110. Mont-Saint-Aignan, 2012.
Noorman, Judith. “A Fugitive’s Success Story: Jacob van Loo in Paris (1661–1670).” In Art andMigration: Netherlandish Artists on the Move, 1400–1750. Edited by Frits Scholten, Joanna Woodall andDulica Meijers, 302–23. Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 63. Leiden, 2013.
Horn, Hendrik J. and Rieke van Leeuwen. Houbraken Translated: Arnold Houbraken’s Great Theatre oftheNetherlandish

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