Jacques de Gheyn III

1596 Leiden – 1644 Utrecht

Jacques de Gheyn III, the eldest son of Jacques de Gheyn II, was a painter and etcher who left a modest but very varied corpus of prints. Trained by his father, he was subsequently active as an independent artist in The Hague and was admitted as a master to the city’s Guild of St. Luke in 1615. The de Gheyn family of artists was deeply rooted in the intellectual and cultural life of the city. Among the prominent friends of Jacques de Gheyn III were the brothers Maurits and Constantijn Huygens. In 1618 he accompanied Constantijn on a journey to England and in 1620 embarked on an official mission to Sweden, where he presented works by his father to the king. In his autobiography published in 1630 Constantijn Huygens regretted the fact that de Gheyn had evidently renounced his profession as an artist; in his old age Jacques appears to have concerned himself more with building up his collection of artworks and antiques. In 1634 de Gheyn moved to Utrecht, where he served as a canon of the Church of St. Mary until his death.