List of Famous people named Jan

Jan van de Cappelle was a Dutch Golden Age painter of seascapes and winter landscapes, also notable as an industrialist and art collector. He is "now considered the outstanding marine painter of 17th century Holland". He lived all his life in Amsterdam, and as well as working as an artist spent much, or most, of his time helping to manage his father Franchoy's large dyeworks, which specialized in the expensive dye carmine, and which he eventually inherited in 1674. Presumably because of this dual career, there are fewer than 150 surviving paintings, a relatively small number for the industrious painters of the Dutch Golden Age. His marine paintings usually show estuary or river scenes rather than the open sea, and the water is always very calm, allowing it to act as a mirror reflecting the cloud formations above; this effect was Cappelle's speciality.

Jan Opaliński was a Polish nobleman of Łodzia coat of arms. Castellan of Rogozin, bibliophile, bought Sieraków in 1591.

Jan Gotlib (Bogumił) Bloch was a Polish banker and railway financier who devoted his private life to the study of modern industrial warfare. Born Jewish and a convert to Calvinism, he spent considerable effort to opposing the prevalent Antisemitic policies of the Tsarist government, and was sympathetic to the fledgling Zionist Movement.

Jan Swammerdam was a Dutch biologist and microscopist. His work on insects demonstrated that the various phases during the life of an insect—egg, larva, pupa, and adult—are different forms of the same animal. As part of his anatomical research, he carried out experiments on muscle contraction. In 1658, he was the first to observe and describe red blood cells. He was one of the first people to use the microscope in dissections, and his techniques remained useful for hundreds of years.

Jan Willem Frans Brandts Buijs was a Dutch-Austrian composer who came from a long line of Dutch organists and composers of protestant church music.