Emanuel Murant was born in Amsterdam on 22 December 1622 to Esaias and Grietjen Murant. According to Houbraken, he was a pupil of Philips Wouwerman and sojourned for a long time in France. On 8 October 1649 he signed a document as a witness in Amsterdam, and on 4 September 1654 he became engaged there to Elisabet Aswerus. His career from 1652 to 1696 can be followed, with some gaps, on the basis of dated paintings. On 5 June 1665 he is documented in Naarden (near Amsterdam), where he kept a landscape by Jan Elevens that his father had lent him. On 12 October 1680 he is mentioned as living in Friesland. He died around 1700 in Leeuwarden.
Murant is known as a painter of local peasant houses and ruins who took particular care with the rendering of the masonry. His style is rooted in Haarlem painting from the middle of the century. The animal staffage in his works has been compared to that of Paulus Potter (1625-1654).
