Ritratto di David Nijs, incisione da: Gigli Cesare, La pittura trionfante, Venezia, Giovanni Alberti, 1615.

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Portrait of David Nijs, engraving from: Gigli Cesare, La pittura trionfante, Venice, Giovanni Alberti, 1615.

He was the most important art dealer of the 17th century: of him, Cesare Gigli writes in the introduction to his 'Della Pittura Trionfante':

"this honoured face
from the chisel to the living has been sculpted
but the excellence of his noble heart
cannot express it in mute colour".

Daniel Nijs was born in 1572 in Wesel, Germany into an exiled Protestant family from what is now Belgium. He moved to Venice around 1590, employed by two of his cousins in their business, which had branches in several European countries. He quickly became part of the Flemish merchant community in the city and after a few years took control of the family business, beginning to specialise in the art trade.Based on the accounts ofVincenzo Scamozzi and the poet Giulio Cesare Gigli, who mention Nijs in some of their writings in 1615, it is known for certain that the merchant managed to achieve enor

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