Isaack van Ruisdael

1599 – 1677

Dutch painter, part of a family of painters. He was the brother to Salomon and the father of the landscape painter Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael. According to Houbraken he was the teacher of Isaac Koene and assuming Houbraken meant Isaack when he referred to the father of Jacob, he was a woodworker specialized in making fancy ebony frames for mirrors and paintings. Isaack sent his sons to learn Latin and medicine, and they both became landscape painters, specialized in ruis-daal, or trickling water through a dale, after their name. According to the RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie), Houbraken confused the members of the family Ruysdael. Isaack was the brother of Salomon, and they both had sons named Jacob. Their father was also called Jacob, but his name was Gooyer, not Ruisdael. Isaack and Salomon changed their name from Gooyer to Ruisdael when they moved to Haarlem, where they both became landscape painters, though it is also possible that Isaack kept doing business in picture frames, since at the time they were painting, there was a high demand for painter's panels and frames in Haarlem. Very few works are known today by Isaack van Ruisdael, but he is known for landscapes in the same style as his son.

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