Jacob Adriaensz Backer

Jacob Backer was a Dutch Golden Age painter of portraits, mythologies and biblical scenes, known for his speed, his confident brushwork and his skill in painting hands and faces. His figures have a soft, glowing light that shows his time around Rembrandt.

Born in Harlingen in Friesland, he trained in Leeuwarden and then worked in Amsterdam, where he was close to Rembrandt in the early 1630s. He painted about 140 pictures in twenty years, including about seventy portraits, and large group portraits such as the Company of Cornelis de Graeff in the Rijksmuseum. He never painted landscapes or townscapes.

His Granida and Daifilo, a pastoral love scene, is in the Hermitage. Look at his portraits of women, which combine rich fabrics with a warm, gentle light on the face.