Although Eckhout's early career and artistic training are unknown, he was born in Groningen, the son of Albert Eckhourt and Marryen Roeleffs.
Most of the pieces that are credited to him are not signed. He was among the first artists from Europe to paint scenes from the New World was him. Johan Maurits, Prince of Nassau-Siegen, the Dutch governor-general of Brazil, brought him and fellow painter Frans Post to Dutch Brazil so they could document the nation's topography, people, flora, and animals.
In addition, Eckhout is well-known for his still life paintings of fruits and vegetables from Brazil. His paintings were meant to be used as interior décor.
Suprisingly few of Eckhout's works of art were marked or dated. In spite of the fact that most were likely painted in Brazil, others were completed after his return to Europe. He appears to have made a expansive number of preparatory portrays whereas in Brazil. Besides, other specialists based their works on Eckhout's canvases and drawings. At times, it isn't totally clear which canvases are duplicates, which were made beneath his supervision, and which are his claim. In expansion, Eckhout's work of art was the premise for numerous of the woodcut outlines of Caspar Barlaeus's Rerum per octennium in Brasilia (1647) and Johannes de Laet's Historia naturalis Brasiliae (1648).
The last mentioned included 533 woodcuts and distributed notes by the German naturalist, geographer, and cosmologist Georg Marcgraf on the fauna and greenery of Brazil, and a segment on medication by the Dutch doctor Dr. Willem Piso, both of whom had served Maurits in Brazil. The premise for these woodcuts was more than 800 depictions, most of them likely by Eckhout.
These works afterward shaped portion of the collection sold by Maurits to his cousin Friedrich Wilhelm, balloter of Brandenburg. They have survived as the Handbooks (two volumes of watercolors), the Theatri rerum naturalium Brasiliae (four volumes, for the most part oil works of art), and the Miscellanea Cleyeri. Once housed in Berlin, these collections vanished amid World War II.
