Jan van Rymsdyk

Jan van Rymsdyk (also Rijmsdijck, Riemsdyk, Remsdyke) (c. 1730 – 20 February 1790) was a Dutch painter and engraver. He is known for his landscapes in the manner of Salomon van Ruisdael and Tielemans. His brothers Hendrik and Pieter were also painters, though neither achieved as much renown. Jan was a major influence on engravers such as Joseph Jacobs and his student Rogier van der Weyden. He is now best known as an anatomic illustrator for his original drawings for three major atlases of normal and abnormal pregnancy published in the mid eighteenth century in London.

Life

Rymsdyk was active The Hague in the late 1740s but was in London by 1750. In 1758 he moved away to Bristol and practised as a portrait-painter; in 1764 he returned to London.

Works

Plate VI of The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus (1774) by William Hunter, engraving by Jan van Rymsdyk

In 1767 Rymsdyk executed a mezzotint engraving of Frederick Henry and Emilia Van Solms, Prince and Princess of Orange, from a painting by Jacob Jordaens at Devonshire House. His skill brought him work with William Hunter, and he executed some of the engravings for Hunter's Anatomia Humani Gravidi Uteri (1774). In 1778, with his son Andrew, he published a series of plates from antiquities and curiosities in the British Museum, Museum Britannicum (second, revised edition 1791).

Family

His son, Andreas van Rymsdyk, gained a medal at the Society of Arts in 1767, and in 1778 exhibited two enamels at the Royal Academy. He assisted his father in his works, and died at Bath in 1786.

Notes

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Van Rymsdyk, Jan". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 58. London: Smith, Elder & Co.