BUYS, Jacobus
(b. 1724 Amsterdam, d. 1801 Amsterdam)
Dutch painter and printmaker. He was the son of a wig-maker. Up to the age of 19 he worked for a solicitor. Both his employer’s son and the poet and collector Sybrand Feitama encouraged him to take lessons with Cornelis Pronk and at the Amsterdam Drawing Academy. He studied, among other things, Jacob de Wit’s work and, after further training with Cornelis Troost, established himself as an independent artist in 1745, enrolling in Amsterdam’s Guild of St Luke in 1750.
Initially he made pastel portraits and painted theatre scenery, from 1755 to 1760 living in Mijdrecht. During the 1770s he began to work on book illustration, the field in which he became famous. His drawings were engraved by Jan Punt, Reinier Vinkeles and many others.
