Jacob Huysmans 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. 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.
He is believed to have been born in Antwerp. A number of his family members also became artists: he was the uncle of Cornelis and Jan Baptist Huysmans, both landscape painters. Huysmans trained in Antwerp and was a pupil of the history painters Gillis Backereel and Frans Wouters.
Huysmans moved to England, according to some sources before the Restoration in 1660. He is first recorded in England in 1662. Here he first started out as a painter of pastiches in a reduced format of history paintings by Anthony van Dyck. He subsequently was able to establish himself as a portrait painter at the court of Charles II. As a Roman Catholic he was in particular favoured by the Queen Catharine of Braganza, a Catholic from Portugal. The famous diarist Samuel Pepys visited the workshop of Huysman (to whom he referred as 'Hiseman') in Westminster on 26 August 1664 and described Huysmans as a 'picture-drawer ... which is said to exceed Lilly (Lely), and indeed there is both of the Queenes and Mayds of Honour (particularly Mrs. Stewart’s in a buff doublet like a soldier) as good pictures, I think, as ever I saw.' Queen Catharine as a Shepherdess (c. 1664, British Royal Collection) and the Queen as St Catherine of Alexandria (of which there are various versions) were among the pictures Pepys saw on that occasion.
While he spent the majority of his career in London, Huysmans resided for a while in Chichester in Sussex following the Great Fire of London. This may have been to escape the threat of anti-Catholic retaliation prevalent in London at this time. Allegations that Catholics had started the fire were exploited as powerful political propaganda by opponents of pro-Catholic Charles II's court, mostly during the Popish Plot and the exclusion crisis later in Charles' reign.
Huysmans died in Jermyn Street, London, in 1696, and was buried in St. James's Church in Piccadilly, a church for which he had painted an altarpiece in the chapel of the Queen.
Jacob Huysmans was principally a portrait painter. 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. 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. His religious and historical paintings are more sober in style than his portraits.
Huysmans influenced David des Granges (1611–1675).
Huysmans’ style has been described as exuberant, a quality that made it particularly appealing to the Portuguese-born Queen Catherine. His style and handling of paint and application of colour are close to the Italianate Baroque style of Anthony van Dyck. His palette is characterized by the use of high-keyed colours, reddish lights in the flesh tones, and a smooth, glossy finish. Huysmans was particularly skilled in rendering the rich colours and textures of sumptuous clothes worn at the court. 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. The grandeur he bestowed on his sitters evokes the work of the Italian painter Guido Reni and the 17th-century Bolognese school.
Huysmans painted many of his female sitters as shepherdesses with clothing embellished with embroidery and jewellery. He also often depicted female sitters as religious or classical figures. Three renderings of ladies in the role of the Roman goddess Diana by his hand are known: the Lady Elizabeth Pope as Diana (Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire), Elizabeth Cornwallis, Mrs Edward Allen, as Diana the Huntress (National Trust, Hatchlands) and Portrait of an unknown lady as Diana (Tate Britain). These portraits follow a standard format depicting Diana with a hunting spear, together with a few hounds from her hunting pack and sharply delineated drapery. The presentation was aimed to highlight the beauty, purity and chastity of the sitter. The pose of the goddess as well as the greyhounds with star studded collar are likely references to the Virgin Mary who in popular Catholic images of the Immaculate Conception was often depicted with a crown of stars.

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