(b Amsterdam, 1592–3; d ?Delft, ?after 1650). Brother of (1) Jan Pynas. The influence of Adam Elsheimer and Carlo Saraceni evident in his work suggests that he travelled to Italy. In 1631 Jacob was named as a citizen of Delft, and the following year he was a member of the Delft Guild of St Luke. In 1641 and 1643 he was back in Amsterdam. Jacob Pynas’s oeuvre is not extensive, but his style is distinctive, with an idiosyncratic language of form, colour and figure type. He developed a warm, unified brown tone for his paintings, which was later adopted by Rembrandt in his early work in Amsterdam. (Earlier scholars had inferred from this that Rembrandt was apprenticed to Pynas, but there is no evidence for this.) In subject-matter Jacob Pynas followed the Amsterdam Pre-Rembrandtists in his choice of Old and New Testament stories and themes from mythology.

Part of the Pynas family

• Pynas, Jacob (Symonsz.)
  • Pynas
  • Pynas: (1) Jan Pynas
  • collaboration
    • Molyn, Pieter, §1: Paintings
  • groups and movements
    • Netherlands, the, §III, 4(iv): Painting and graphic arts, c 1550–c 1680: Amsterdam
    • Pre-Rembrandtists
  • works
    • Landscape painting, §II, 5(i): 17th century: Artists working in Italy
    • Saraceni, Carlo, §1: Training and early works, c 1598–c 1610