Caspar Netscher(Prague or Heidelberg ca. 1639 –1684 The Hague)

How To Cite
Bakker, Piet. "Caspar Netscher." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
New York, 2017.
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According to Houbraken, Caspar Netscher was born around 1639. His parents were the sculptor JohanNetscher from Stuttgart and Elizabeth Vetter, daughter of a Heidelberg burgermeister.[1] Johan’s father issaid to have worked at the court in Heidelberg and Prague. Johan died shortly before Caspar’s birth. Hiswidow, fearing the dangers of the Thirty Years’ War that was then still raging, fled the region and after many
peregrinations finally settled with her children in Arnhem. She died soon thereafter, and Arnold Tulleken, thelocal doctor, took Caspar in. Tulleken initially gave the boy a medical education, but when Caspar displayeda propensity for drawing, Tulleken apprenticed him to the Arnhem painter Hendrik Coster (ca. 1620–64).[2]Thanks to the mediation of “Wynant Everwyn, who was a cousin of Ter Borch,” Netscher entered theworkshop of Gerard ter Borch (1617–81) in Deventer around 1655.[3] Here he received the second part ofhis training, and mastered Ter Borch’s refined style to perfection. He subsequently stayed on as anassistant until about 1659. In Deventer Netscher painted the portrait of Christine van der Wart (CN-110e),wife of the Arnhem draper Willem Craeyvanger. This is one of Netscher’s earliest portraits and the pendantof the portrait Craeyvanger had earlier commissioned from Paulus Lesire in The Hague (PaL-100).[4] In theyears that followed, Ter Borch’s workshop also turned out eight individual portraits of the couple’s children,with Netscher and his teacher being responsible for four each (GB-111a, GB-111b, GB-111c, GB-111d,
CN-110a, CN-110b, CN-110c, and CN-110d).[5] In addition to portraits, Netscher painted genre scenes inwhich he repeated, sometimes with minor adjustments, works by his teacher. Striking in this respect is thathe signed these copies and variants himself, suggesting that he had a privileged position in Ter Borch’sworkshop.[6]According to Houbraken, upon completing his training under Ter Borch, Netscher went to Holland to work
for art dealers. If he, in fact, left Deventer, he did so around 1658.[7] Dissatisfied with his situation, Netscher
decided to travel to Rome. His journey, however, took him no farther than Bordeaux, where he fell in lovewith Margaretha Godijn, whom he married in November 1659.[8] Having worked in Bordeaux for some time,
he came into contact with Marinus de Jeude, a wealthy art lover and collector who persuaded him to returnto the Dutch Republic. Netscher settled in The Hague in 1662, and joined the local painters’ confraternity© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Caspar Netscher
Page 2 of 5(Schilders Confrerie) Pictura in the same year.
In The Hague, Netscher painted portraits, genre scenes and history pieces. He was in the habit of making
drawings of his finished work, a number of which have been preserved.[9] On these so-called ricordi henoted information such as the prices, names of his patrons, and annotations regarding composition andcolor. From these notations it appears that Netscher’s work did not initially fetch high prices. He received 66
guilders for a Vertumnus and Pomona in 1664, and 50 guilders for a portrait of a woman in 1667.
Netscher was one of the few genre painters in the court city. Evidently, this kind of painting did not find
immediate favor with the internationally oriented elite. The artist excelled primarily in depictions of just one
or a few figures absorbed in simple everyday activities. A splendid example of this is the Lace Maker, which
demonstrates the artist’s fine eye for detail as well as his remarkable skill in the rendering of textures, inparticular shimmering silk.[10]Probably because he could not support his family with genre paintings alone, Netscher increasingly turned
to portraiture, meeting with great success. If in his genre scenes Netscher continued to model his work onthat of Ter Borch, in his portraits he drew on French examples. In this choice, not only did he distinguishhimself from flourishing Hague colleagues, such as Adriaan Hanneman (ca. 1604–71) and Jan Mijtens (ca.
1614–70), but he also cleverly played into the growing interest in small, less formal portraits displaying arefined elegance. Netscher generally situated his sitters before a background of sumptuous draperies witha view of a parklike landscape. His clients came from the Hague patriciate, as well as circles around thecity’s court and the diplomatic world. Netscher received commissions from outside The Hague as well,
primarily Amsterdam, where he portrayed burgomaster Cornelis Bicker and members of the Six family. He
also enjoyed international renown and regularly welcomed high-ranking visitors in his Hague workshop.
Cosimo III de’ Medici, for instance, bought a number of copies after works by Ter Borch from him around
1668–69.
Netscher was highly productive, even when he was plagued by bouts of gout and confined to his bed. He
only stopped working on 15 January 1684, according to Houbraken, “when this affliction affected his bowls,and caused his death.”[11] When Margaretha Godijn died in 1694, having married again three years after
Netscher’s death, an inventory was drawn up of her possessions, which included many works by her firsthusband.[12] Her estate bears witness to a certain affluence, and her inventory can be considered a
posthumous reflection of Netscher’s prosperous career.[13] The artist’s three sons followed in his footsteps,
the most gifted of whom was Theodorus.[14]-Piet Bakker

Endnotes© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Caspar NetscherPage 3 of 5

1. Marjorie E. Wieseman found nothing in the German archives to support Houbraken’sstatement. In the Amsterdam wedding registers, however, she found a “Johannes Nescher,schilder” (Johannes Netscher, painter), who married Susanna Jans, widow of the painter and art
dealer Maerten van Balckeneynde from Rotterdam, in 1632. She thinks that this Johannes may
have been Caspar’s actual father. Although the name Netscher occurs only rarely in the Dutch
Republic, I consider Houbraken’s version to be more likely, certainly as long as no documents
are found in which Caspar can be related to any member of the Netscher family referred to byWieseman. Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch
Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), 23.
2. Coster was probably born in Arnhem around 1620. He was a portraitist and still-life painter. In1638 he copied a portrait of Duke Karel van Gelre (d. 1538) for the court of Gelderland. Coster
later left for Groningen, joining the guild there in 1656, and died in 1664. Hendrik Coster wasalso acquainted with the patrician Everwijn family. In 1639 he painted a portrait (presentwhereabouts unknown) of the then six-year-old Jacob Everwijn (1633–1709). Jacob was later
advocate of the audit office of Gelderland and Zutphen, and alderman and burgomaster ofArnhem; his parents were Johan Everwijn and Christina Kelffken.
3. “Wynant Everwyn, die een neef van Terburg was.” Arnold Houbraken,De groote schouburgh
der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen , 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., TheHague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1976), 3:94. Houbraken was probably mistaken and meant
Willem Everwijn, see Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century
Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), 24; 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): 15, n. 12. The intermediary between Netscher and
Ter Borch was probably Willem Everwijn (1613–73), the son of Reynier Everwijn and Naleke
Craeyvanger and tax collector of Arnhem, who was married to Johanna Kelffken (1619–1701),
the daughter of Johan Kelffken and Susanna Dorre. Willem thus held the same position as TerBorch’s father in Zwolle (see the biography of Ter Borch in this catalogue). The couple sat for
Ter Borch in 1653. See Johan Carol Bierens de Haan, ed.,Gelderse gezichten: Drie eeuwen
portretkunst in Gelderland, 1550–1850 (Exh. cat. Nijmegen, Museum Het Valkhof) (Zwolle,2002), 120–21, nos. 30, 31; S. J. Gudlaugsson, Gerard ter Borch, 2 vols. (The Hague,1959–60), nos. 103, 104. Houbraken calls Everwijn a cousin of Ter Borch; this presumed family
relationship, however, has not been confirmed.
4. See the biography of Paulus Lesire in this catalogue.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Caspar Netscher
Page 4 of 5

5. 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.
6. The museum in Gotha, for example, owns a signed and 1655 dated copy by Netscher of Ter
Borch’s Paternal Admonition, and in a private collection is a somewhat handsomer version from1659 of Ter Borch’s 1635 Doctor’s Visit. Peter Hecht, Hollandse Fijnschilders: Van Gerard Dou
tot Adriaen van der Werff (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Maarsen/The Hague, 1989),
156 n. 1. Both paintings are illustrated in Sturla J. Gudlaugsson, Gerard ter Borch, 2 vols. (TheHague, 1959–60), 117, no. 110 IIa and 56 no. 4b.
7. Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting(Doornspijk, 2002), 25. According to Wieseman, he might have worked as a copyist for a Hague
dealer.
8. Houbraken relates that Netscher had a letter of recommendation from Tulleken “aan zyn NeefNeny” (to his cousin Neny) in Bordeaux. He would have been referring to the Arnhem merchant
Jacob Noeij, married to Elizabeth Evertsdr Tulleken, who lived in Bordeaux. A. van Suchtelen
andM.

Potjer,ArianevanSuchtelen

andMenno

Potjer,“DeArnhemse

familie

Craeyvanger—een bijzondere groep portretten door Paulus Lesire, Gerard ter Borch en CasparNetscher” Oud Holland 127 (2014): 13, n. 11. See also Jacobus Anspach, “De Veluwsche
familie Tulleken en hare aanverwanten,” Heraldieke Bibliotheek Nw. Reeks, vol. 3 (1881), 36.
9. Abraham Bredius, “Een en ander over Caspar Netscher,” Oud-Holland 5 (1887): 264–65.
10. Oil on canvas, 34 x 28 cm, signed and dated 1662, Wallace Collection, London.
11. “Toen deze kwaal in zyn ingewanden geslagen, hem de dood [had] aangebragt.” Arnold
Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen , 3 vols.
(Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1976), 3:96.
12. For a transcript of this inventory, see Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), 143–48 (doc. 99). Published earlier in
Abraham Bredius, “Een en ander over Caspar Netscher,” Oud-Holland 5 (1887): 267–74.
13. When her estate was divided among her children on 15 September 1699, its total value wasclose to 37,000 guilders. The paintings were worth more than 4,000 guilders. Marjorie E.
Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002),
151 (doc. 110).
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Caspar Netscher
Page 5 of 5

14. The takeover of the workshop did not transpire smoothly, for Netscher’s widow, Margaretha
Godijn, seems to have been in debt. According to Van Gool, she was a shrewd businesswoman
who ran the house with an iron fist. She had her hands full primarily with her talented eldest son,Theodorus (1661–1728), who was a bit of a rake and continued to misbehave despite hismother’s exhortations. To get out from under her, he left for Paris in 1680, where he met withgreat success. This notwithstanding, he returned to The Hague in 1700. In the meantime, he hadestablished his reputation and, emulating his father, he portrayed numerous eminences,including King-Stadholder William III and King Frederick I of Prussia. Theodorus left for Englandin 1715, and returned in 1722. Constantijn Netscher (1668–1723) had less natural talent andpainted in the same manner as his father, whereby it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between
their portraits. Anthonie, the third son who elected to become a painter, left after squandering hisfather’s inheritance for the East Indies and died there in 1713.

Literature
Houbraken, Arnold. De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders enschilderessen. 3 vols. Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint,Amsterdam, 1976, 3:92–96.
Bredius, Abraham. “Een en ander over Caspar Netscher.” Oud-Holland 5 (1887): 263–74.
Hecht, Peter. Hollandse Fijnschilders: Van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen van der Werff. Exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum. Maarsen/The Hague, 1989, 156–80.
Wieseman,MarjorieE. CasparNetscherandLate

Seventeenth-Century

DutchPainting. Doornspijk, 2002.
Van Suchtelen, Ariane and Potjer, Menno. “De Arnhemse familie Craeyvanger—eenbijzondere groep portretten door Paulus Lesire, Gerard ter Borch en Caspar Netscher.”Oud
Holland 127 (2014): 7–24.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection