Dutch painter

Leiden 1640 – 1719 Oegstgeest

 

Genre painter, who occasionally also painted portraits and history subjects.

 

Pupil and eldest son of Abraham I Toorenvliet (1620–1692), a glass painter and drawing instructor, who also teached Frans van Mieris and Matthijs Naiveu.

 

Strangely enough after his training Jacob did not immediately join the local painter’s guild in his native Leiden.

 

According to Arnold Houbraken, the painter’s biographer in his “De Groote Schouburgh” of 1718, Toorenvliet left for Italy in 1670, almost aged thirty. He stayed in Rome, where he became in 1671 a member of the “Schildersbent”, which was a group of Nordic painters: here he was nicknamed Jason.

 

From 1673 onwards he stayed for a few years in Venice, where he married a rich woman.

Between 1676 and 1679 he must have been in Vienna, where he produced a lot of paintings. In the Great Plague in Vienna in 1679 at least 76.000 people died, among them Jacob’s two sons.

By 1680 he was already back in his native Leiden and left for Amsterdam, where his son from his second wife, Abraham II, was born in 1682. 

 

Jacob moved back to Leiden: 

- in 1686 he finally became member of the local painter’s guild;

- in 1694 he created together with Willem van Mieris and with Carel de Moor the drawing academy of Leiden;

- he remains further documented here until 1712, having the highest functions in the painter’s guild.

 

 

The Schildersbent was a society of Dutch, Flemish, a few German and a single French painter, all of them active in Rome. 

It was founded in or circa 1623. 

Its members were called the “Bentveughels’” (“group of birds”). Although created as a support for compatriots it soon became well known for its rather convivial meetings, in so far that in 1720 this joyful society was forbidden by papal decree for too many feasts had ended in the greatest disorder.

 

Every member of the Schildersbent received a surname, a so-called “Bentname”. 

Houbraken tells a funny story about Toorenvliet’s nickname “Jason”. 

 

When arriving in Rome Toorenvliet was terribly overdressed and during his first thirsty meeting with the Bentveughels he criticised them on two occasions on their very poor clothing. He spoke of his youth back in Holland: while studying under his father he always asked him stupid questions about his future financial status as a Master: “shall I have a plume on my hat”, “shall I have a sword”, etc. His father answered each time “yes my son”, “Ja zoon”. This answer had become a classic at his house and his other family members also used it.

When Jacob was officially accepted as a member of the Bentveughels he received his Bentname “Jason” which, being already fairly drunk, he was very happy with: the name of the important Greek mythological hero who had returned home with the Golden Fleece. It was only the day after that he understood the true meaning of his surname: it referred to his youthful nagging. Obviously his badly dressed fellow artists had not forgotten about the way he had offended them during their first meeting … .