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Portrait of Christine van der Wart (1620–66)
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Portrait of Christine van der Wart
(1620–66)
Caspar Netscher(Prague or Heidelberg ca. 1639 – 1684 The
Hague)

ca. 1655–56
oil on canvas
93 x 67 cm
inscribed and signed in light paint, lower left:“Aetatis 3[5?] / C. Netscher”
CN-110.e

How to cite
Van Suchtelen, Ariane. “Portrait of Willem Craeyvanger, 1651 & Portrait of Christine van der Wart, ca. 1655-56” (2017).
In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York,
2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

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This entry is about Willem Craeyvanger (1615/1616–after 1666) and Christine vanComparative Figures

der Wart (1620–1666). Click here to read about their children.
Willem Craeyvanger and Christine van der Wart of Arnhem had six sons and two
daughters. In the seventeenth century, such a large family was unusual, because
children often did not survive infancy (they did have one other daughter who died at avery young age). In the prime of their lives, the Craeyvangers had portraits painted ofthemselves and every one of their surviving children. Rather than commissioning agroup portrait—which would have been an understandable alternative for a familywith so many offspring—they chose instead to have individual portraits made.
Willem and Christine are depicted half-length and nearly life-size in two pendant
portraits.[1]The portrait of Willem was produced in 1651 by Paulus Lesire (1612–54/56), a

Fig 1. Adriaen Hanneman, Portrait ofConstantijn Huygens and His Children,
1640, oil on canvas, 204.2 x 173.9 cm,
Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 241

painter active in The Hague.[2] His signature with the age of the sitter, “Aetatis 35,”
appears in the left background. The accompanying portrait of Christine was not
executed by Lesire. During the restoration of the painting carried out in 2009, thesignature of Caspar Netscher (ca. 1639–84) was discovered, along with her age:
“Aetatis 35” (at the left in the shadow, barely visible with the naked eye).[3]
Christine’s age reveals that her portrait dates from 1655 or 1656, since she was bornin 1620.[4]For the series of portraits of their children, the Craeyvangers chose an entirely
different form of portraiture and a different format. The children were painted inabout 1658 in a collaborative effort by Netscher and his teacher, Gerard ter Borch(1617–81), who portrayed them in pairs, grouped according to age, as pendants facing
each other. The brothers and sisters are depicted three-quarter-length, standing, inpainted ovals. This exceptional group of 10 portraits was inherited by the second son,Willem Craeyvanger, and subsequently passed down through the generations,remaining in the family for nearly 350 years.
The cloth merchant Willem Craeyvanger was 35 years old when he had himself
portrayed by Lesire in 1651. A native of Arnhem, Craeyvanger had probably taken
advantage of a visit to The Hague to have his portrait painted, presumably because in
those years the thinly populated eastern part of the country, where he lived, lacked
good portrait painters. The only well-known portraitist in Arnhem, Hendrik Coster(ca. 1620–64), had a rather stiff style that made a provincial impression.[5] In
comparison, Lesire’s fluently painted portrait of Willem Craeyvanger radiates stylish
elegance.
People from the whole of the Dutch Republic, particularly from regions lacking good
portraitists, had their portraits painted whenever they stayed for any length of time in© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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The Hague. They might have been brought there for political reasons, such as
representing their province at the meetings of the States General (the national
assembly) or acting as a delegate to one of the other boards or colleges. In theseventeenth century, a number of the portrait painters active in The Hague had close
ties to England and English patrons, and worked in a fashionable courtly style strongly
influenced by Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641). In the 1640s and 1650s Adriaen
Hanneman (ca. 1604–71), who had worked in Van Dyck’s studio in London, created a
furor among the international courtly circles in The Hague with this elegant style ofportraiture. Lesire, a native of Dordrecht, worked in The Hague from around 1643/44
until his death sometime after 1651.[6] No more than a handful of his portraits fromthose years have survived.[7] Whereas his early work, produced in Dordrecht, displays
the influence of both Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp (1594–1652) and Rembrandt van Rijn
(1606–69), in The Hague Lesire assumed the elegant style inspired by the popular
Hanneman (fig 1).
Portrait of Willem Craeyvanger was painted swiftly with much attention to the details
in Willem’s clothing, his shoulder-length hair and his graceful hands. He holds his left
hand to his chest—a gesture perhaps intended to express his devotion to his
wife—while reaching with his other hand toward the armrest of his chair. His hands
are softly modeled, and his fingers are unnaturally long and graceful. His black cloak
is draped over his right shoulder and arm. With his nonchalant hairstyle, thin
moustache and goatee, Willem cuts a fashionable figure, though his small, flat collar
and narrow cuffs do not suggest a taste for excessive finery. It is not known why
Craeyvanger visited The Hague in 1651, but in any case he took home a valuable
souvenir of his stay there: a portrait that seems to radiate an awareness of his
prominence in society. Visitors to his house in Arnhem must have been impressed byhis stylish depiction.
At the time of his visit to The Hague, Craeyvanger had been married to Christine vander Wart for 12 years, and she was expecting their seventh child. Gerrit, their
youngest son, would be baptized on 4 December 1651 in the Grote Kerk in
Arnhem.[8] Perhaps this pregnancy was the reason she did not accompany her husband
to The Hague. In any case, her likeness was not painted until some time after thecompletion of Willem’s portrait. Even so, it must have always been the intention tohave her portrait painted as a pendant, because Lesire portrayed Willem turned
toward her still-to-be-painted likeness. In the heraldic sense, he is on her dexter side,
the position traditionally reserved for the man. In 1653 and 1655 the youngest
Craeyvanger children were born—two girls, at last (an elder sister had diedyoung)—after which time Christine’s portrait was painted. Although it would havebeen natural to have her pendant portrait done by the same artist, the Craeyvangers
commissioned Caspar Netscher, who worked in nearby Deventer, to paint this work.
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The reasons for this decision are not known: maybe Lesire had already died by thenor perhaps it was impossible for Christine to travel to Lesire’s studio in The Hague.
One might speculate that the Craeyvangers first approached Gerard ter Borch for
Christine’s portrait since this renowned portraitist was not only Netscher’s teacher, but
had also been working for Arnhem patrons since around 1653. In that year, forexample, he had painted portraits of Willem Craeyvanger’s cousin Willem Everwijn
and his wife, Johanna Kelffken.[9] Perhaps Ter Borch was unwilling to paint a portrait
that conformed to Lesire’s likeness of Willem—so unlike his own work in both scaleand execution—and therefore passed the commission on to his talented pupil andstudio assistant. Netscher grew up in Arnhem, where he had learned the rudiments ofthe trade from Coster, but he completed his training with Ter Borch soon after thatmaster had moved to Deventer from his native Zwolle in 1654/55.[10] Netscher would
master the refined, small-figure style of his teacher and continue to work in Ter
Borch’s studio until his departure for Bordeaux in 1659. After his return from France
in 1662 he settled in The Hague, where he painted small-scale portraits for the rest of
his career.
If the signature applied in light-colored paint to Christine’s portrait had not been
discovered, one would hardly guess that Netscher was its maker, because its size isremarkably large compared with the rest of his oeuvre.[11] The portrait of Christine of1655 or 1656 is one of Netscher’s earliest known paintings and a remarkable addition
to his early oeuvre.[12] From 1655 onward Netscher occasionally signed his own
paintings, even though he was still working under his teacher’s supervision. Evidently
he had acquired a certain degree of independence in Ter Borch’s studio and wasoccasionally permitted to sign his own work. The lack of documentary evidence
leaves us unenlightened with regard to the exact nature of the working relationshipbetween Ter Borch and Netscher. In the seventeenth century, various kinds ofcontracts between teacher and pupil were possible, depending on such things as thepupil’s level of experience and financial means.[13] It is not clear why Netscher signed
the portraits of Christine and the youngest Craeyvanger children so faintly with a thin
application of light-colored paint, making his name almost illegible. One might
speculate that this was a deliberate attempt to disguise the fact that the pendants were
executed by different artists.[14]Clearly, Netscher did his best to ensure that Christine’s portrait matched Lesire’s
likeness of Willem in scale, composition, palette, and its rather broad brushwork,
though with the light falling onto the figure from the right instead of the left. The
somewhat harsh light falling on her face, with a shadow providing a dark accent
below the nose and a dark line dividing the lips, resembles Lesire’s portrayal ofWillem. The background, too, is similar: both portraits display cast shadows and© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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details executed in light brown paint, slightly reminiscent of cloudy skies. Netscher
went on to use dark contours in the rendering of Christine’s hands; her right hand inparticular was executed with rather pastose brushstrokes, which differ from Lesire’s
soft modeling of Willem’s hands. Over her black dress Christine wears a double collarof translucent white linen that falls far below her shoulders. The lowest layer of thecollar is decorated with strips of lace and tied closed with small white bows and a
black rosette, as was the fashion in the 1650s.[15] Her cuffs, too, consist of varioustransparent layers of starched linen. Christine holds up her dress with her left hand
and rests her right hand on a red-upholstered armrest. Her hair is tied back beneath a
black cap; long pendants inlaid with precious stones are attached to the ends of thecap brooch. Seen together, these pendants form a striking whole.
Who were Willem Craeyvanger and Christine van der Wart, who had themselves andtheir children immortalized with such apparent faith in the future? Since thediscovery of their portraits in 2009, numerous details of their lives and theirrespective families have been found in the archives of Arnhem, Nijmegen andsurroundings.[16] The documentary evidence suggests that the couple—both typicalrepresentatives of the upper middle class—prospered for a long time, and that Willem
Craeyvanger played a prominent role in Arnhem’s public life. Willem, the third son ofJohan Craeyvanger and Naleken Sluisken, must have been born in 1615 or 1616,
according to the inscription on his portrait. Christine van der Wart was a native ofNijmegen, where she was baptized in the Stevenskerk on 16 September 1620.[17]Christine’s mother was the daughter of Peter Verstegen, town secretary of Arnhem;
one of her mother’s brothers was married to an aunt of Willem. Evidently Willem had
become acquainted with his bride in the family circle. Willem and Christine, bothfrom Protestant families, married on 20 November 1639.
In 1640, at the age of 24, Willem Craeyvanger was first appointed to public office in
Arnhem,[18] after which he steadily climbed the social ladder. Many important posts
were to follow, though he never secured a top administrative office as magistrate or
burgomaster. He held various offices in, for instance, the Guild of St. Nicholas—themerchants’ guild, whose 400 members made it the largest guild in the city. He also
fulfilled administrative functions in one of Arnhem’s civic militias,[19] organizations
originally intended to help defend the city. In addition, he was a member of the elite
St. Joost civic militia. Between 1644 and 1663, he served twice as deacon of theReformed Church and afterwards was twice appointed an elder.[20] For Craeyvanger,
an important step upward was his honorable appointment in 1647 to membership in
the prestigious Brotherhood of St. Nicholas, a charitable organization thatadministered poor relief. This appointment occurred several years before he had his
portrait painted in 1651.

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In 1662 Craeyvanger was appointed by the town council to the office of town
treasurer, after working for three years as assistant to the previous treasurer; one ofhis duties in this capacity was to collect various city taxes. This post could have beena stepping-stone to higher government offices, but Craeyvanger overplayed his hand.
Although he was rather wealthy—for one reason because he had inherited moneyfrom both his own family and that of his wife—financial recklessness got him into
trouble. In the end he lost his fortune, and as a result his social position.
In March 1666 Craeyvanger went bankrupt and absconded from Arnhem, leaving his
wife and children behind, destitute. His possessions largely went to his creditors,
except for the family portraits, which apparently had no monetary value to outsiders.
To compound the family’s misfortunes, Christine died five months after her husband
declared bankruptcy. She was possibly a victim of the plague, which swept throughArnhem in August 1666. The children, then between the ages of 11 and 25, could noteven afford the few guilders needed to have the church bells rung at her burial. The
stricken family fell apart, but their portraits remained together. Inherited by thesecond son, Willem, they were passed down from one generation to the next for morethan three centuries.

- Ariane van Suchtelen, 2017

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Endnotes
1. The portraits of Willem Craeyvanger and Christine van der Wart were once lined, but their linings were
removed during the restoration recently carried out by Patrick Corbett in London at the request ofJohnny van Haeften, who acquired the pictures at the sale of 6 May 2009. The portraits were registeredin 1939 by Dr. H. Schneider for the Iconographic Bureau, The Hague (IB nos. 39669 and 39673).
2. On Paulus Lesire, see the biography in this catalogue and Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der RembrandtSchüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94), 3: 1711–43; Edwin Buijsen, et.al., Haagse schilders in degouden eeuw (The Hague, 1998), 324. Closely related to the portrait of Willem Craeyvanger are Lesire’s
pendant portraits of the Tiel burgomaster Albert van Lidth de Jeude and his wife, likewise of 1651
(Flipje en Streekmuseum, Tiel, not published by Sumowski). The Departure of Henriette Maria from
Scheveningen in 1643 (Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. [Landau and Pfalz,
1983–94], no. 1162) of 1644 is the earliest known painting produced by Lesire in The Hague (art dealer
P. de Boer, Amsterdam, 2011).
3. In Christie’s sale catalogue (Amsterdam, 6 May 2009), the portrait of Christine was attributed to Paulus
Lesire, but Netscher’s signature was discovered during the restoration carried out by Patrick Corbett in
London at the request of Johnny van Haeften, who acquired the pictures at the sale of 6 May 2009.
4. Regionaal Archief Nijmegen, Doopregisters (baptismal registers), RBS 1164/187.
5. On Coster, see Rudolf E. O. Ekkart, “Gelderse portretten en portrettisten: Hendrick Coster,” in Gelderse
Gezichten: drie eeuwen portretkunst in Gelderland 1550–1850, eds. Johan Carel Bierens de Haan, Petervan der Coelen, and Rudolf E. O. Ekkart (Exh. cat. Nijmegen, Valkhof Museum) (Zwolle, 2002),
60–63.
6. Paulus Lesire’s date of death is unknown, but his last dated works were produced in 1651. Lesire’s
Portrait of a Man in Armor from the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Metz (inv. no. 11423; Werner Sumowski,
Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. [Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94], no. 1161) was previously
considered his last painting, because it supposedly bears the date 1654 or 1656. Closer inspection (undera microscope) has shown, however, that the date should be read as 1650 (with thanks to Raphaël
Mariani, Metz).
7. Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94), nos.
1158–62, and the portraits of the Tiel burgomaster Albert van Lidth de Jeude and his wife, of 1651
(Flipje en Streekmuseum, Tiel, not published by Sumowski).
8. For the history of the Craeyvanger family, see Ariane van Suchtelen and Menno Potjer, “De Arnhemse
familie Craeyvanger: Een bijzondere groep portretten door Paulus Lesire, Gerard ter Borch en Caspar
Netscher” Oud Holland 127 (2014): 7–24. The most important sources of the information presented inthis entry are to be found in the Gelders Archief, namely the Doop-, Trouw- en Overlijdensregisters(Registers of Baptism, Marriages, and Deaths), the registers of members of the Reformed Church, the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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documents of the Arnhem church council and of the provincial synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in
Gelderland (Guelders), the raadsignaten (formal records of the decisions taken by the local council), therecords of decisions taken by the magistrates and their summaries in the protocols of conveyances andmortgages, the court records (Low Court and High Court), the accounts of the town treasurers, theledger of the decisions taken by the deacons and accounts of the parish, idem of the Brotherhood of St.
Nicholas, idem of the guilds, idem of the Orphanage, the armorials of the St. Joost civic guard and theBrotherhood of St. Luke, all in Arnhem, and the records of sentences issued by the courts of private law(contract law) and civil law (conflicts between private persons) of the Overbetuwe (Gelders Archief).
On Arnhem in the seventeenth century, see, among others, Menno Potjer and R. R. A. van Gruting, De
Velperweg in kaart gebracht, 1600–1795: Eigenaren en eigenaardigheden (Utrecht, 2008), and Jeroen
Benders and F. Keverling Buisman, Arnhem tot 1700 (Utrecht, 2008).
9. Sturla J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert ter Borch, 2 vols. (The Hague, 1959–60), nos. 103 and 104, Stichting
Brantsen van de Zyp, Arnhem, since 2010.
10. See Netscher’s biography in this catalogue; see also Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), 23–35.
11. For the only other large-scale portraits in Netscher’s oeuvre, see Marjorie E Wieseman, Caspar Netscherand Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), nos. 19 and 201.
12. On Netscher’s early career, see Marjorie E. Wieseman, “The Craeyvanger Portraits inContext–Shedding Light on Caspar Netscher’s Early Career,” Oud Holland 127 (2014): 31–47.
13. Cf. Ronald de Jager, “Meester, leerjongen, leertijd: Een analyse van zeventiende-eeuwse NoordNederlandse leerlingcontracten van kunstschilders, goud- en zilversmeden,” Oud Holland 104 (1990):
69–111.
14. Marjorie E. Wieseman, “The Craeyvanger Portraits in Context–Shedding Light on Caspar Netscher’s
Early Career,” Oud Holland 127 (2014): 41, n. 11. The signatures have become even more difficult toread over time, owing to abrasion and the formation of craquelure (with thanks to Petria Noble).
15. Cf., for example, Sturla J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert ter Borch, 2 vols. (The Hague, 1959–60), nos. 38, 104,
106, 108, 118, 134, 135, 159, 160, 163, 175, 178, 180, 182, 184, 186, 196, and 210; Marjorie E.
Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), no. 3.
16. For the history of the Craeyvanger family, see Ariane van Suchtelen and Menno Potjer, “De Arnhemse
familie Craeyvanger: Een bijzondere groep portretten door Paulus Lesire, Gerard ter Borch en Caspar
Netscher” Oud Holland 127 (2014): 7–24. The most important sources of the information presented inthis entry are to be found in the Gelders Archief, namely the Doop-, Trouw- en Overlijdensregisters(Registers of Baptism, Marriages, and Deaths), the registers of members of the Reformed Church, thedocuments of the Arnhem church council and of the provincial synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in
Gelderland (Guelders), the raadsignaten (formal records of the decisions taken by the local council), therecords of decisions taken by the magistrates and their summaries in the protocols of conveyances andmortgages, the court records (Low Court and High Court), the accounts of the town treasurers, the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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ledger of the decisions taken by the deacons and accounts of the parish, idem of the Brotherhood of St.
Nicholas, idem of the guilds, idem of the Orphanage, the armorials of the St. Joost civic guard and theBrotherhood of St. Luke, all in Arnhem, and the records of sentences issued by the courts of private law(contract law) and civil law (conflicts between private persons) of the Overbetuwe (Gelders Archief).
On Arnhem in the seventeenth century, see, among others, Menno Potjer and R. R. A van Gruting, De
Velperweg in kaart gebracht, 1600–1795: Eigenaren en eigenaardigheden (Utrecht, 2008) and Jeroen
Benders and F. Keverling Buisman, Arnhem tot 1700 (Utrecht, 2008).
17. Regionaal Archief Nijmegen, Doopregisters (baptismal registers), RBS 1164/187.
18. At this time he became a “gemeensman” (Gelders Archief, Raadsignaten 1640–66), i. e., a member ofthe council of the “sworn community” (“gezworen gemeente”). This council played an advisory role in
the Arnhem city government.
19. Craeyvanger was recorded in 1646 as the standard-bearer of the Bakkerstraatvendel; in 1651 he was alieutenant; and in 1661 he became a captain (hopman), which meant that at one time or other he held
every administrative office in the organization.
20. Gelders Archief, Archief Nederlands Hervormde Kerk, access 2179, Acta van de kerkenraad(documents of the church council) 1640–66, inv. 1 and 2. Lidmatenlijsten (members of thecongregation), inv. 86 and 87.

Provenance
Willem Craeyvanger (1615/16–after 1666) and Christine van der Wart (1620–66), Arnhem; by descentto their second son, Willem Craeyvanger (1643–after 1712) and Maria van Ommen; by descent to theirsecond son, Gijsbert Craeyvanger (born ca. 1700), and Geertruida Margaretha Bongers (born ca. 1705);
by descent to their second son, Gijsbert Craeyvanger (born ca. 1730), and Geertruida Klingen(1737–1817), Utrecht; by descent to their third son, Willem Craeyvanger (born ca. 1762), and Sophia
Florentina Hovij (1751–1830); by descent to their second son, Lodewijk Craeyvanger (1788–1859), andMaria Alexandrina Kennedy (1793–1871), Utrecht; by descent to their son Willem Craeyvanger(1820–73) and Jacoba Theodra Steijn Parvé (born 1827), Deventer; by descent to their eldest daughter,
Louise Maria Craeyvanger (1854–1924), Naumburg a/d Saale; by descent to her sister Jacoba Theodora
Craeyvanger (1856–1938), Naumburg a/d Saale; by descent to Maria Louise van Limburg Stirum-Luden(1886–1962), and Samuel John van Limburg Stirum (1879–1963), Olst; by descent to the family
members (sale, Christie’s, Amsterdam, 6 May 2009, no. 78, as by Gerard ter Borch II; no. 79, as by
Paulus Lesire; and no. 80, as by Gerard ter Borch II and studio [Johnny van Haeften, Ltd., London,
2009]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2009.

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Exhibition History
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, December 2009–January 2010, on loan with the permanent collection[lent by the present owner].
The Hague, Mauritshuis, 10 February 2010–16 January 2011, on loan with the permanent collection[lent by the present owner].
Nijmegen, Museum het Valkhof, March–December 2011, on loan with the permanent collection [lentby the present owner].
Istanbul, Sakıp Sabancı Museum, “Rembrandt and His Contemporaries: The Golden Age of Dutch Art,”
21 February–10 June 2012, nos. 9–18 [lent by the present owner].
Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, October 2012–February 2013 [lent by the present owner].
Maastricht, Bonnefantenmuseum, February–August 2013 [lent by the present owner].
Zwolle, Museum de Fundatie, on loan with the permanent exhibition, September 2013– [lent by thepresent owner].

References
Gudlaugsson, Sturla J. Geraert ter Borch. 2 vols. The Hague, 1959–60, 2:113 (under no. 103), 146(under no. 135), 289 (under Pieter van Anraadt).
Van Suchtelen, Ariane. “De hele familie Craeyvanger / The Craeyvanger Family All Together.”
Mauritshuis in Focus 23 (2010): 22–28.
Wuestman, Gerdien, ed. Rembrandt and His Contemporaries: The Golden Age of Dutch Art. Exh. cat.
Istanbul, Sakıp Sabancı Museum. Istanbul, 2012, 48–51, nos. 9–18.
Van Suchtelen, Ariane, and Menno Potjer. “De Arnhemse familie Craeyvanger: een bijzondere groep
portretten door Paulus Lesire, Gerard ter Borch en Caspar Netscher.” Oud Holland 127, no. 1 (2014):
7–24.
Noble, Petria. “From One Piece of Canvas: the supports of the eight Craeyvanger children’s
portraits.” Oud Holland 127, no. 1 (2014): 25–30.
Wieseman, Marjorie E. “The Craeyvanger Portraits in Context: shedding light on Caspar Netscher’s
early career.” Oud Holland 127, no. 1 (2014): 31–47.
Vogelaar, Christiaan. “The Leiden Collection.” In Rembrandt and his Contemporaries: History Paintingsfrom The Leiden Collection. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Caroline Van Cauwenberge, 14. Exh.
cat. Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam. Zwolle, 2023. [Exhibition catalogue also published in Dutch.]© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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Technical Summary
The half-length Portrait of Christine van der Wart painted by the artist Caspar Netscher and the half-length
portrait of her husband, Willem Craeyvanger, painted by the artist Paulus Lesire are executed on similarly
sized, unlined fabric supports and both paintings are signed and inscribed in light paint.
The Portrait of Christine van der Wart, the mother of the eight Craeyvanger children (CN-110.a–d andGB-111.a–d), is signed and inscribed: “Aetatis 3[5?] / C. Netscher” in barely discernible light-colored paintalong the lower left. The last digit of the inscription bearing her age appears to be a 5 although it is difficult
to make out. Based on her baptism in 1620, together with the inscription, a date of 1655 or 1656 is proposed,
making her portrait one of Netscher’s earliest known works.[1]The Portrait of Willem Craeyvanger, the father of the eight Craeyvanger children, is inscribed, signed, anddated in light-colored paint along the center of the left side: “Aetatis 35. /P. Lesire. / 1651. Fecit.”
Neither portrait has undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2009 and both portraits remain
in a good state of preservation.[2]Technical Summary Endnotes

1. A. van Suchtelen,“De hele familie Craeyvanger/The Craeyvanger Family All Together,” Mauritshuis in
Focus 23 (2010): 23.
2. Entry based on technical examination report by Petria Noble, head of conservation, Mauritshuis, The
Hague, and Oleg Karuvits during his internship as part of the Conservation and Restoration program atthe University of Amsterdam, 2009–10.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection