Guillijn Peter van der Zeepen

Guillijn Peter van der Zeepen († January 1711 in Aurich ) was court painter at the East Frisian court . He also painted numerous portraits and genre pieces for wealthy citizens.

Nothing is known about his education and origin. It appears for the first time in 1693 on the invoices of the Cirksena family . In 1696 he bought a house on the market in Norden . A year later, on April 27, 1697 he married there Jacoba Have Right († 24 December 1703 in Aurich) was added as a sign the civil rights .

He must have enjoyed great esteem in 1693, because his salary is given as 220 thalers - for comparison, a pharmacist earned around 100 thalers at the time. The princely family's chronic financial shortage soon reduced this to 100 thalers, which was paid sporadically. Therefore, there were other tasks, such as he gave drawing lessons to Prince Carl Enno (1692–1709) and August Enno (1697–1725). He had his own room in the castle for this purpose.

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Very little is known about his work, because when the Prussian King Friedrich II inherited East Frisia in 1744 , he had the castles and their inventory auctioned to the highest bidder. 31 of his works were sold. A number of portraits were also given as gifts to surrounding royal houses and have been preserved to this day.

In addition, pictures that were taken outside the courtyard also survived. There is the portrait of Foelke Isabelle Tammena (1671–1758), which was made on the occasion of her wedding in 1704 with the administrator Hermann Arnold von Lengering († 1726). In the Ostfriesisches Landesmuseum in Emden there are still two genre pieces from 1698: "The battle for pants" and "Funny societies and the possirious ideas of the Mahler".

literature

• Biographical lexicon for East Frisia. Volume IV, Aurich 2007, pp. 451-454, pdf