Jacob Grimmer was the son of Nicolaas and Elisabeth Cops. The only documentary about his training, is his written registration in 1539 under the name Jaques Grimmer, in the liggeren of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as a student of Gabriël Bouwens. He became master of the guild in 1547.

Jacob Grimmer married Lucia van de Wouwer in 1548. Of the four children of this marriage, Abel became an important landscape an architectural painter. Jacob was principally a painter of landscapes and winter scenes although he also painted some themed works as the Tower of babel. He often returned to the subject of the Four Seasons or the Twelve Months. His earliest dated work was dated 1546 and the latest works from 1589. His son Abel was a painter as well. He made a variant to this composition on a round panel. (Bertier de Sauvigny, p. 318, pl.61)

As was common practice in the Antwerp art sector, Jacob Grimmer often collaborated with other specialist as Marten van Cleve and Gillis Mostaert, who painted the staffage in his landscapes. As early as 1550, Jacob Grimmer was praised by the famous Italian historian Vasari as one of the best landscape painters of his time. Karel van Mander claimed that he knew  of no other painter as ‘outstandingly skilled in landscapes’. He was appreciated by his contemporaries and also by artists of the next generation. Rembrandt’s inventory of 1656 included a winter landscape by Jacob Grimmer.

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