CLAEUW, Jacques de
(b. 1623, Dordrecht, d. 1694, Leiden)

Biography

Dutch painter. He was a still-life painter who worked in Dordrecht (1642-46), The Hague (1646-51), Leiden (1651-66), Zeeland (1666). From Zeeland he returned to Leiden where he was last mentioned in 1694. A dated vanitas still-life with a signature and inscription suggests that the painter around 1687 resided in Haarlem. He was a member of the Guild of St Luke in Dordrecht, The Hague and Leiden.

Though a successful painter, he was not so gifted as a businessman, probably due to the eight children he had to support, and he was regularly forced into quick sales of his paintings beneath their market value, and was just as regularly bailed out by his father and close friends.

Throughout his career the overriding influence on the still-lifes of Jacques de Claeuw were those of Abraham van Beyeren, under whom he possibly trained.