Dutch painter, etcher and draughtsman, part of a family of artist, the older brother of Roelandt Savery. His teacher, according to van Mander, was the Flemish painter and draughtsman Hans Bol, who also became an Amsterdam citizen in 1591. The two may have come north from Antwerp together. Bol's influence, especially his miniaturist style, is evident in Jacob's earliest known works of 1584-86. These are typically cabinet-size landscapes, finely painted in gouache and combining mountains, waterways, woodlands and villages with hunts or nominal biblical or mythological subjects. Jacob's animal paintings, with their abundance of creatures, adopt a near naturalistic approach. This new approach to animal painting likely played a role in his brother Roelandt's development of animal painting into an independent genre. //