Jacob de Heusch (November 23, 1656 (bapt.) – May 8, 1701), was a Dutch painter. He was Willem de Heusch’s nephew, signing as soon as his uncle, substituting an initial J for the initial G (of Guglielmo).
De Heusch was born in Utrecht. He learnt drawing from his uncle, and travelled to Rome in 1675, where he acquired associates and patrons for whom he executed pictures after his return. According to Houbraken, he became a advocate of the Bentvueghels and made trips to Venice and other cities subsequent to friends, painting similar to Salvator Rosa. After several years in Italy he returned to Utrecht, where he lived once his brother, a postmaster. He continued painting, but was not severely productive, and most of his exploit was sent to Italy. He enjoyed making pleasure trips, and in 1698 he travelled to Berlin in imitation of his Bentvueghel buddy Johan Teyler, and it was on his final pleasure trip to Amsterdam to visit other Bent friends Albert van Spiers and Jan van der Keere, that he vomited blood and died presumably of injuries he had suffered a bit earlier in a fall from a carriage.
According to the RKD his Bent nickname was ‘Afdruk’ or ‘Copia’, and he was registered in Rome in 1686, 1691 and 1692.
Like his relative, Jacob was an “Arcadian” and an imitator of Jan Both. He chiefly painted Italian harbour views. His pictures are now scarce. Two of his canvases, the “Ponte Rotto” at Rome, in the Brunswick Gallery, and a lake harbour taking into account shipping in the Lichtenstein stock at Vienna, are obsolescent 1696.
A harbour later than a tower and inattentive mountains, in the Belvedere at Vienna, was executed in 1699. Other examples may be found in English private galleries, in the Hermitage of St Petersburg and the museums of Rouen and Montpellier.
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