Caspar Netscher (Heidelberg c. 1636/39 – 1684 The Hague)

The parentage of this Dutch painter of portraits and genre scenes is unclear. Early sources suggest Heidelberg or Prague as his place of birth and identify his father as Johann or Johannes Netscher (?-c. 1639), a German sculptor from Stuttgart; his mother was said to be the daughter of ‘Vetter’, mayor of Heidelberg. However, Wieseman, in her 2002 monograph on the artist, suggested a more likely candidate as his father was a certain Johannes Netscher (d?-c. 1642), a painter from Rotterdam, who in 1632 married Susanna Jansz (?-1659), widow of the painter and art dealer Maerten van Balckeneynde (?-1631). Both 1636 and 1639 are suggested as the year of birth of their son.¹¹M.E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-century Dutch Painting, Doornspijk 2002 (Aetas Aurea: Monographs on Dutch & Flemish Painting, vol. 16), pp. 23-24.

At an early age, Caspar was in Arnhem, where he was apprenticed to Hendrik Coster (active 1638-1659). About 1654-55, Netscher moved to Deventer, where he worked for four or five years in the workshop of Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681).²²Ibid., pp. 24-25.

After having worked as a copyist for art dealers, possibly in The Hague, Netscher subsequently set off for Italy, around 1658-59. His journey, however, was soon halted in Bordeaux, where he met his future wife, Margaretha Godijn (?-1694), the daughter of a Walloon Protestant immigrant. According to Houbraken, the couple was married on 26 November 1659. The hostile attitude of the French towards Protestants led Netscher and his family to return to The Netherlands. They settled in The Hague, and in October of that year Netscher joined the local painters’ confraternity, Pictura. In 1668, the artist was granted citizenship of The Hague and subsequently joined the local militia company, the Sint Sebastiaansschutterij ‘De Witte Vendel’.³³Ibid., pp. 26-28. Of the eleven children that were born during the 1660s and 1670s, nine survived to adulthood. Two sons, Theodoor (1661-1728) and Constantijn (1668-1723), also became artists.⁴⁴Ibid. p. 29.

Like many other seventeenth-century artists, Netscher was also active as an art dealer, which was a fairly lucrative side-line with a steady clientele. Moreover, almost immediately after his arrival in The Hague, the artist enjoyed the prestigious patronage of the social and political elite throughout The Netherlands. Johan de Witt (1625-1672), Grand Pensionary of Holland, and Constanijn Huygens I (1596-1687), secretary to the stadholders, commissioned portraits from Netscher. The Tuscan crown prince Cosimo III de’Medici (1642-1723) paid a famous visit to his studio.⁵⁵Ibid., pp. 32-33.

On Netscher’s death in The Hague on 15 January 1684, his estate, including both his own works and his dealer’s stock, passed to his wife. An inventory, drawn up shortly after her death in 1694, lists 179 paintings, as well as over 300,000 drawings and prints, which were used as models for the instruction of students: ‘dienende voor discipulen om na te teijckenen’. The majority of these possessions passed to his son Constantijn.⁶⁶Ibid., pp. 34-35.

Paintings
During his early years in The Hague, Netscher painted mostly small genre scenes, dominated by the influence of Ter Borch, noticeable in the use of rather dark colours and a preference for low-life subjects such as stable and kitchen interiors. Around 1664-65, however, Netscher’s manner of painting became looser, his palette brighter and his choice of subjects more pretentious. His sumptuous interiors feature young men and women elegantly dressed in rich silks and brocades. These small-scale, arched-format pictures show the influence of Leiden ‘fine painters’ such as Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) and Frans van Mieris I (1635-1681). Another clearly recognizable source of inspiration for Netscher at this time was the masters of the Delft school, Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684) and Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675).⁷⁷G. Jansen, ‘Caspar Netscher’, Grove Art Online, 2003, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T062008.

After circa 1667 portraiture became Netscher’s main interest. He adopted the elegant, aristocratic court style introduced by Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) and popularized among the elite of The Hague by Adriaen Hanneman (1614-1671), Jan Mijtens (1614-1670) and Jan de Baen (1633-1702). In contrast to the life-size scale so popular among these painters, Netscher continued to espouse the same small format as his genre pictures.⁸⁸Ibid.

From the 1670s until his death, Netscher was the most sought-after portrait painter in The Hague. To meet the enormous demand for his work, he resorted to workshop methods such as the in-filling of portrait heads. He also left a large part of the portrait production to his sons Theodoor and Constantijn.⁹⁹Ibid.

Drawings
Netscher left a large corpus of drawings, many of which can be directly related to his paintings. Compositional studies, in chalks or in pen and ink, were probably used to give prospective clients an idea of his abilities. Such drawings may also have been made by Netscher as ricordi of his painted work. In a few cases, the works carry autograph inscriptions on the versos, documenting when and for whom he had executed the design in oils, and how much money he had received for it. A second, important category of drawings are individual studies of hands and arms in black and white chalk on blue paper. These records would have served as reference and study material for the workshop.¹⁰¹⁰Ibid.

Saskia van Altena, 2021

References
R. de Piles, Abrégé de la vie des peintres, avec des réflexions sur leurs ouvrages, Paris, 1699, pp. 452-56; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), pp. 37, 92-96; C. Hofstede de Groot (ed.), Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragenden holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, 10 vols., Esslingen 1907-28, V (1912), pp. 146–308; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXV (1931), p. 398; F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, XIV (1956), pp. 143-46; P. Hecht, _De Hollandse fijnschilders. Van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen van der Werff, exh. cat. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 1989, pp. 155-80; E. Buijsen (ed.), Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw. Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag, 1600-1700, Zwolle 1998, pp. 218-23, 332; M.E. Wieseman, ¬Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-century Dutch Painting, Doornspijk 2002 (Aetas Aurea: Monographs on Dutch & Flemish Painting, vol. 16); G. Jansen, ‘Caspar Netscher’, Grove Art Online, 2003, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T062008; M.E. Wieseman, ‘Paper Trails: Drawings in the Work of Caspar Netscher and his Studio’, in V. Manuth and A. Rüger (ed.), Collected Opinions: Essays on Netherlandish Art in Honour of Alfred Bader, London 2004, pp. 248-61; https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/59178