^
Died on 15 January 1684: Caspar
Netscher, foreign-born Dutch Baroque painter specialized
in portraits
born in 1639. He studied under Gerard
Terborch. — {Would anything match Netscher nature paintings, if
any existed?}
— Netscher may have been born in Heidelberg or Prague. Most of his
career was spent in The Hague, where he settled in 1661 or 1662, but he
was trained in Deventer by Terborch.
From his master he took his predilection for depicting costly materials
— particularly white satin. He painted genre scenes and some religious
and mythological subjects, but from about 1670 he devoted himself almost
exclusively to portraits, often for court circles in The Hague. His reputation
was such that Charles II invited him to England. His work, elegant, Frenchified,
small in scale, and exquisitely finished, influenced Dutch portraiture into
the 18th century, his followers including his sons Constantijn [1688-1723]
and Theodor [1661-1732]
— Caspar Netscher was a son of the German sculptor Johann Netscher.
As a young man he went to Arnhem to do an apprenticeship with the painter
Hendrik Coster. About 1654 the young artist relocated to Deventer, where
he completed his studies in the workshop of Gerard ter Borch. Late in the
1650s, he left for Italy. However, he did not journey further than France,
where he married. The couple settled in The Hague.
Netscher's early paintings were simple, small-format
genre pieces, but in the 1660s he moved onto more distinguished subjects.
He painted several portraits in the elegant Hague court style. Netscher
received high prices for his work, especially in the 1670s, when he developed
into a highly successful portrait painter and the enormous demand forced
him to employ assistants. Netscher was a master in depicting silk and brocade.
His careful rendering of material was derived from the Leiden fijnschilder
tradition, but he was also strongly influenced by Delft painters such as
De Hooch and Vermeer. In the 1670s he also turned his hand to history pieces
and landscapes. In addition to his paintings, a large number of his drawings
are still extant.
— Caspar Netscher's father was the German sculptor Johann Netscher
[–1641] and his mother the daughter of Vetter, Mayor of Heidelberg.
At an early age Caspar came to Arnhem, where he was apprenticed to Hendrik
Coster, a little-known still-life and portrait painter (fl 1638–59). About
1654 Netscher moved to Deventer, where he completed his training in the
workshop of Gerard ter Borch (ii). A number of signed and, occasionally,
dated copies by Netscher after ter Borch survive from this period, such
as the copy (1655; Gotha, Schloss Friedenstein) after ter Borch’s Parental
Admonition (c. 1654; Amsterdam, Rijksmus.) and a freely handled version
(1659; untraced) of ter Borch’s Doctor’s Visit (1635; Berlin, Gemäldegal.).
Netscher’s first independent compositions, for example the small pendants
Portrait of a Man and Portrait of a Woman (both 1656;
Utrecht, Cent. Mus.), were strongly influenced by ter Borch. That these
works are all fully signed suggests that Netscher held a special position
in his master’s workshop.
— The students of Caspar Netscher included, besides his sons, Johannes
Brande, Olivier Deuren [1666-1714], Jacob Does the Younger [1654-1699],
Daniel Haringh [1636-1713], Maurice Linden, J. Spirk, Johannes Tiellius
[1660-1719], Johannes Vollevens the Elder [1649-1728] Aleijda Wolfsen [1648-1690].
— LINKS
— Mary
II, Wife of Prince William III (80x63cm) _ Cloaked in an orange dress
Mary sits against a background that includes a giant amphora. A balustrade
separates the terrace from the luscious growth of the garden with its various
statues. The ermine cloak indicates the subject to be royalty: Mary II was
the daughter of the English king, James II. On 15 November 1677, Mary, still
only sixteen, married the Dutch Stadholder, William III. The couple took
up residence in Holland. In 1689, she and William were crowned King and
Queen of England and Scotland. Her father, James II, a Catholic, had aroused
the opposition of the English Protestants who subsequently invited William
III to usurp the throne.
The royal monogram on the tapestry is that
of William and Mary: Rex William et Maria Regina. The interwoven initials
'W' and 'M' symbolise the marital bond between William and Mary. The tapestry
was made between their accession to the throne in 1689 and Mary's death
in 1694. Beneath the crown are the coats of arms of Scotland, England and
Ireland and the lion of Nassau. This tapestry was probably made after a
design by Daniel Marot, one of the leading artists in William and Mary's
court.
— William
III, Prince of Orange and, from 1689, King of England (80x63cm) _ While
a cavalry skirmish rages in the background, William III poses coquettishly
with one hand on his hip and holding his staff of office in his other hand.
He is wearing armour. His helmet, decorated with an orange plume, is standing
on a block of stone. William III was the first member of the House of Orange
to bear the title king. In 1689 he became King of England. That was after
this portrait was painted, in which he is depicted as captain general of
the army - the position he was appointed to at the beginning of 1672. Later
in July of that Disaster Year he was installed as Stadholder, thus ending
the first Stadholderless Period which had begun in 1650, the year of the
death of William II [27 May 1626 – 06 Nov 1650] and of the birth of
William III [14 Nov 1650 – 19 Mar 1702].
A stadholder (the word means viceroy or governor)
represented the sovereign in a part of the latter's domain. He was both
administrator and general. When the provinces of the Low Countries revolted
against Spain in the late 16th century the office was retained. But now
it was the provinces themselves that appointed the stadholder. Each province
had its own stadholder, although the same person was often appointed in
more than one province. of Holland and Zeeland.
A series of bitter conflicts with Stadholder
William II led the province of Holland to oppose the appointment of a successor
after the latter's death in 1650. Holland gained its objective. The States
General resolved that it was not constitutionally necessary for a province
to appoint a stadholder. No successor was therefore chosen. Friesland and
Groningen kept their own stadholder. The first Stadholderless Period lasted
until 1672, the Disaster Year in which England and France attacked the Republic
together. The call for a strong leader became irresistible and a new stadholder
had to be appointed.
William III was the son of William II and
Mary Henrietta Stuart [14 Nov 1631 – 03 Jan 1661], eldest daughter
of the English King Charles I [29 Nov 1600 – 09 Feb 1649]. William
III also married (on 15 November 1677) an English princess: his cousin Mary
II [30 Apr 1662 – 28 Dec 1694], daughter of the future King James
II [24 Oct 1633 – 16 Sep 1701]. It was in 1685 that James succeeded
to the throne of England. However, he soon began to rouse the opposition
of the English Protestants with his pro-Catholic policies. Eventually, the
King's opponents called on William III and Mary II (next in line) to take
the English crown. Having gained the permission of the States General States
General, William III left for England on 11 November 1688.
In Bruges in 1464, representatives of the
estates of the various provinces of the Netherlands assembled for the first
time at the invitation of Philip the Good under the name States General.
A century later, during the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish king, the States
General assumed sovereign power. Under the Dutch Republic (1588-1795) the
States General represented the central authority. The delegates of the seven
provinces met in the Binnenhof in The Hague. Today, the States General is
the name given to the combined upper and lower houses of the Dutch parliament.
With a fleet of three hundred ships, William
sailed from Hellevoetsluis. On 15 November 1688 the Stadholder and his army
landed at Torbay, starting the “Glorious Revolution”, which
passed without bloodshed, as most of the English forces deserted to William's
camp, and ended in early 1689, when William and Mary accepted to be joint
monarchs under the condition set by the English Parliament that they accept
the Bill of Rights, a new limitation on the power of the crown.
— The
Visit (1865; 555x463pix _ ZOOM
to 1295x1080pix, 362kb)
— The
Lace-Maker (1662, 33x27cm) _ Caspar Netscher is said to have been born
in Prague but moved as a child to Arnhem, where he was a student of the
local painter Herman Coster before entering the studio of Gerard
ter Borch in Deventer. (The central figure in ter Borch's An
Officer Dictating a Letter has been identified as Netscher.) He
set out for Italy but only got as far as Bordeaux where he stayed for several
years before returning to Holland in 1662 and settling in The Hague. He
established a great contemporary reputation, . particularly as a portrait
painter, and is said to have been invited to England by Charles II. He declined
to go, although he painted many English and French sitters in The Hague.
His portraits, most of which are on a small scale, were strongly influenced
in style by van Dyck and his followers. In his early years, before devoting
himself exclusively to portraiture, Netscher painted small-scale genre paintings
and also some religious and classical subjects: the earlier ones are related
stylistically to the work of ter Borch and Metsu, the later ones, to Frans
van Mieris the Elder. This painting was cleaned in 1990 and the correct
date of 1662 revealed. It stands, therefore, at the very beginning of Netscher's
career as an independent artist in The Hague. It is one of his most successful
works, remarkable for the modesty of its subject, its richness of color
and firmness of modeling. It is an image which celebrates the effective
performance of quiet domestic duties. The landscape print pinned to the
wall (at the bottom of which can be seen the artist's signature and the
picture's date) shows how such works were displayed in households which
were not prosperous enough to afford paintings.
— Presentation
of the Medallion (1655, 62x68cm) _ A young officer kneels to present
a medallion to a young woman sitting by a table. She receives his attentions
with no show of emotion, unlike the woman behind her and the young man beside
her who are preparing to drink a toast. A feature of this work is the splendid
painting of the elaborate costumes worn by the protagonists. It is not possible,
nor is it important, to decide whether the officer is making a declaration
of love or merely handing over the medallion on behalf of some absent friend.
Netscher became a student of Terborch sometime during the 1650s and he was
the student who most successfully emulated the style of his master. As a
young man he made excellent copies of Terborch's works. It has been suspected
that the Presentation of the Medallion is an adaptation of a painting by
Terborch. Although it is typical of the best of Netscher's work, the somewhat
affected gesture foreshadows the approach of the later more mannered period
of genre painting.
— A
Lady (1679; 600x500pix)
— A
Man in a Long-Haired Wig (1680; 600x488pix)
— Vertumnus
and Pomona (1681; 600x440pix)
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