 He was born in Antwerp, the son of Jan Baptist Nollekens, a genre and still life painter from Antwerp who had practised for a while in the Dutch Republic and England, and eventually settled in Roanne in France.He is believed to have studied under Antoine Watteau, whose style and choice of subject he to some extent imitated; and did study for a time under Giovanni Paolo Panini.Nollekens went to England in 1733.