Jacob Duck was probably born in Utrecht, where he is listed in the painters' guild of St. Lucas to 1621. Between 1631 and 1649 he worked in Utrecht, Haarlem and surroundings, 1656, he moved to The Hague, where he died around 1667.

He specialized in genre scenes of soldiers but also of everyday life with a highly detailed description of the interior. Another topic included allegorical representations.

Jacob Duck originally trained as a goldsmith before entering the studio of Cornelis Droochsloot at the relatively advanced age of twenty-one. While painting in Utrecht at this time was largely the domain of the Caravaggisti, Duck modeled his style on the works of the Amsterdam artists Pieter Codde and William Duyster, and their subject matter of guardroom scenes and merry companies.