Jacob Hoefnagel (also 'Jacobus', 'Jakob' or 'Jakub") (1573 in Antwerp – c.1632 in Hamburg), was a Flemish painter, printmaker, miniaturist, draftsman, art dealer, diplomat, merchant and politician. He was the son of the Flemish painter and miniaturist Joris Hoefnagel (1542–1601) who was a court painter to the dukes of Bavaria and Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. Jacob Hoefnagel himself became a court painter to Rudolf II and to the Swedish court. He is noted for his illustrations of natural history subjects as well as his portraits, topographical views, emblems and mythological works, which continue his father's style. Life Jacob Hoefnagel was the oldest son of Susanna van Onsem and Joris Hoefnagel (1542–1600) and was baptized in Antwerp on 25 December 1573. His father was a member of a rich family of merchants in Antwerp who had left his home country after the 1576 Sack of Antwerp, in which much of the family fortune was lost to plunder. His father had been working in the family business but had also learned to paint and draw. During his exile his father was employed as a court painter successively by the dukes of Bavaria and Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. Unlike his father who was not trained professionally as an artist but had started out as a merchant in the family business in diamonds and luxury goods, Jacob was given the opportunity to study art under a master in Antwerp. He was registered as a pupil of Abraham Liesaert in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1582. He then started a peripatetic life. He travelled via Munich to Frankfurt am Main where he joined his father at the latest in 1592. His father had by then remarried after the death of Jacob's mother. It was during this time that Jacob published a series of etchings copied from drawings by his father. It is likely he left Frankfurt in 1594 following the persecution of the Calvinists in that city. He was in Regensburg in 1594 and from 1600 in Prague. He was appointed the court painter to Rudolf II in Prague on 7 November 1602, a position he held until 1613. From 1602 he also spent time in Vienna where he married in 1605 Anna Muys, the daughter of the Dutch court architect Anthoni Muys (Anton de Mois). This was already his third marriage. Throughout his life Jacob Hoefnagel would marry five times.