Brief Biography-Jan Ekels, the Younger of Amsterdam, was a genre and portrait painter who was trained initially by his father Jan. He joined the Amsterdam Academy for seven years during which time he copied paintings by artists like Jan Miense Molenaer. He spent two years in Paris and toured the Rhineland in Germany where he extended his experience of the old masters. His main influences were from artists such as Pieter de Hooch, Gabriel Metsu and Johannes Vermeer. He won a medal and the Great Painter Book by Gerard de Lairesse for getting the first prize at the Amsterdam Drawing Academy in 1781. When his parents died, his inheritance allowed him to paint at his leisure. In 1783, he gained admittance to the Felix Meritis Foundation in Amsterdam which became established in 1776. He died at the early age of thirty-three in 1793 after having a stroke.