Portrait of a Young Man

Born into a family of "ebenistes," Jacob was a pupil of Jacques-Louis David, from whose studio he emerged to become official painter to Eugène de Beauharnais (1781-1824), Prince of Eichstadt and Duke of Leuchtenberg. He accompanied the Prince's household to Italy in 1805 when the Prince was named Viceroy of Italy. There Jacob produced historical subjects with a political bent suitable to his patron. When he returned to France in 1815, he was appointed a professor of drawing at the Ecole Vétérinaire at Alfort. He produced pencil portraits of colleagues such as the daughter of veterinarian Jean Girard, a curator of the collections at Alfort and a professor at the school. While the sitter of this portrait has not yet been identified, it is likely one of the artist's colleagues at Alfort.
Though Jacob occasionally executed portraits, the majority of his work was meticulous illustrations of medical texts, documenting anatomy and surgical procedures, sometimes in gruesome detail. He opened his own design school in 1835 and was also active as a lithographer.