Adriaen van der Werff

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Self-portrait of Adriaen van der Werff as a court painter from the Electoral Palatinate, holding a portrait of his wife Margaretha van Rees and his daughter , 1699

Adriaen van der Werff (born January 21, 1659 in Kralingen-Ambacht , today Rotterdam ; † November 12, 1722 in Rotterdam) was a Dutch painter.

life and work

Adriaen van der Werff was first a student of Cornelius Picolet (1669-1670), later with Eglon Hendrik van der Neer (1671-1676) and then settled in Rotterdam . There he was visited in 1696 by the elector Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz , for whom he painted his portrait and the judgment of Solomon , for which he was appointed court painter to the elector and in 1703 he was knighted.

He lived alternately in Düsseldorf , where he received a top salary of approx. 4,000 Reichstalers every six months at the court of Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz, and in Rotterdam, where he died on November 12, 1722. He has painted numerous biblical, mythological and genre pictures , shepherds and portraits on a smaller scale, which are characterized by a very industrious and elegant execution. The modeling of the bare meat is often carried out to an ivory or porcelain-like smoothness, the heads are expressionless and without sensation; but his contemporaries valued Werff's painting very highly because of these properties which corresponded to the taste of the time. In general, his fine painting was very much appreciated at all courts. Most of his pictures (30) are now in the Munich Pinakothek (including 16 from the story of Christ and Diana, discovering the misstep of Callisto ) and the Dresden Gallery (12, including Lot with his daughters , the repudiation of Hagar , a penitent Magdalena , Venus and Cupid and The Paris Judgment ).

Adriaen's brother Pieter van der Werff (* 1665; † after 1721 in Rotterdam ) was his pupil and painted in the same way.

His bust was displayed in the Hall of Fame in Munich.

Works (excerpt)

Sarah leads Hagar to Abraham , 1699
Portrait John Churchill Marlborough

Web links

Commons : Adriaen van der Werff  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Hermann Arthur Lier:  Werff, Adrian van der . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, p. 10 f.
  • Helge Siefert: To the glory of the hero. History and genre painting of the 17th and 18th centuries , Munich 1993.
  • Johann Dominik Fiorillo: History of the drawing arts in Germany and the United Netherlands , Volume 3, p.268ff
  • Georg Kaspar Nagler: New general artist lexicon , volume 14, p.290ff

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bettina Baumgärtel : Dutch Paintings and Collections . In: Ekkehard Mai (ed.): Holland after Rembrandt. On Dutch art between 1670 and 1750 . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2006, ISBN 978-3-412-07006-9 , p. 37
  2. ↑ Helge Siefert: To the glory of the hero. History and genre painting of the 17th and 18th centuries , Munich 1993, 194
personal data
SURNAME Werff, Adriaen van der
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1659
PLACE OF BIRTH Kralingen-Ambacht , today Rotterdam
DATE OF DEATH November 12, 1722
Place of death Rotterdam