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for Adriaen van der Werff
Adriaen van der Werff
Dutch, 1659 - 1722
Dutch painter and draughtsman. He was apprenticed to the portrait painter Cornelis Picolet (1626–79) from 1668 to 1670 and then from c.1671 to 1676 to Eglon van der Neer in Rotterdam. From 1676 van der Werff produced small portraits and genre paintings as an independent master; the Cook and Hunter at a Window (1678; New York, priv. col.; see Gaethgens, no. 2) and Man and Woman Seated at a Table (1678; St Petersburg, Hermitage) perpetuate the thematic and stylistic traditions of Gerrit Dou, Gabriel Metsu, Frans van Mieris and Gerard ter Borch (ii) but are distinguished by their greater elegance and richness of costume and interior. Van der Werff’s portraits date mainly from the years 1680–95 (e.g. Two Children with a Guinea-pig and a Kitten (1681; London, Buckingham Pal., Royal Col.)). The motif of children with animals recalls van der Neer, while the careful depiction of fabrics recalls the Leiden school of ‘Fine’ painters. His Portrait of a Man in a Quilted Gown (1685; London, N.G.) resembles compositions by Caspar Netscher and Nicolaes Maes: a figure leaning against a balustrade, before a landscape. Van der Werff’s work is, however, more elegant, in part because of the depiction of fabrics, but also because of the inclusion for the first time of Classical sculpture, in this case the Farnese Flora (Naples, Mus. N.), copied from Jan de Bisschop’s engraved Signorum veterum icones (The Hague, 1668–9).
Children Playing before a Statue of Hercules (1687; Munich, Alte Pin.) is a genre piece enhanced by a moralizing theme (exhorting young artists to persevere on the path of science and art). In this work the ‘Fine’ painting technique is united with Classical and classicizing elements. Van der Werff took his subject from Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (Dut. edn, 1644); the children were based on van der Neer’s Children at Play and Two Boys with a Birdcage (both Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Mus.); and the Classical sculpture group of Hercules and the Hydra was inspired by Artus Quellinus the elder’s sculpture in the Amsterdam Stadhuis (now Royal Palace), François Perrier’s engraved Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarium (Rome, 1638) and the print after Domenichino’s Scourging of St Andrew (Rome, Oratory of S Andrea Apostolo presso S Gregorio al Celio) reproduced in Jan de Bisschop’s Paradigmata graphices variorum artificium (The Hague, 1671). This, van der Werff’s multi-figured composition set in a large space, is the first incidence of the deliberate use of Classical art as a source.
In 1687 van der Werff, by then a successful artist, married the wealthy Margaretha Rees (1669–1731), whose guardian, Nicolaes Anthonis Flinck, owned a collection of prints and paintings through which van der Werff became further acquainted with Classical and Renaissance art, as well as the French and Italian Baroque styles. In Amsterdam Flinck also introduced van der Werff to Jan Six, a collector of Italian drawings and Classical sculpture, and to Philip de Flines, the head of the literary classicizing society Nil Volentibus Arduum, founded together with Gérard de Lairesse in 1669. Van der Werff’s Architectura and Pictura (1692; mostly destr.; the middle part depicting Fame was discovered in 1994 and is now in Rotterdam, Hist. Mus., see Gaethgens, no. 37) is a trompe l’oeil ceiling piece in the manner of Lairesse’s allegorical wall and ceiling paintings for de Fines. The Amorous Couple (1694; Amsterdam, Rijksmus.) typifies van der Werff’s sensual, mythologically inspired works produced from 1685 to 1695. It contrasts with the severely classicizing style, with exaggeratedly slender, idealized nude figures, that he later adopted.
In 1691 and 1695 van der Werff was head of the Rotterdam Guild of St Luke. In 1696 his Children Playing before a Statue of Hercules was acquired by Johan Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, who also ordered a Judgement of Solomon and a Self-portrait (both Florence, Uffizi). The following year van der Werff received a contract that made him the highest-paid court painter, with the stipulation that he should work exclusively for the Elector for six months of every year at an annual salary of 4000 guilders. From this time on, van der Werff’s work consisted primarily of religious subjects, in which he perfected his much-admired smooth style. Compared with an early version of Hagar Brought before Abraham (1696; St Petersburg, Hermitage), that painted for the Elector (1699; Munich, Alte Pin.) exhibits a complete transition to classicism in its ordered composition, monumental and classicizing draperies and idealized figure of Abraham (derived from prints after Roman sculptures of the Tiber and the Nile). This painting is one of the erotically tinged Old Testament scenes that van der Werff had been painting since 1693, a group that also included Lot and his Daughters (1694; Dresden, Gemäldegal., destr.; see Gaethgens, no. 43).
For the Entombment (1703; versions Munich, Alte Pin., and St Petersburg, Hermitage), van der Werff received a hereditary title of nobility (invariably reflected in his signature after 1703) as well as a commission for 15 paintings depicting the Mysteries of the Rosary (Schleissheim, Staatsgal.), including the Presentation of Christ (1705) and the Annunciation (1706). The Rosary series was completed in 1716 with the allegory of the Homage of the Arts to their Patrons (sketches Munich, Graph. Samml.). In this painting , figures representing Painting, who holds the artist’s own self-portrait, and the Free Arts venerate a double portrait of the Elector and his wife which surmounts a pyramid with an inscription praising the Elector as a patron. A recurring feature of van der Werff’s work is the repeated use of motifs, as in the Judgement of Paris (1712; Dresden, Gemäldegal., destr.; see Gaethgens, no.31) in which Paris is a repetition of the figure of Adam in Adam and Eve (1711; Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Mus.). The figure of Venus in Venus and Cupid (1716; London, Wallace) recalls that of Diana in Diana and Callisto (1704; Rotterdam, Boymans–van Beuningen), which, in turn, was derived from Cornelis Cort’s print after a painting by Titian (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.).
After the death of the Elector in 1716, van der Werff depended on the open market, where his work fetched high prices. In 1722 he sold ten paintings, including the Venus and Cupid, one of six known paintings of Mary Magdalene (1719; destr.; see Gaethgens, no. 100) and the Finding of Moses (1722; Rennes, Mus. B.-A. & Archéol.), to Gregory Page of Greenwich for 34,600 guilders.
Van der Werff was internationally admired as the most important Dutch painter during his lifetime, but late 18th-century art critics denigrated his ‘ivory’ flesh tones and slick technique as ‘lifeless’ (even while collectors still paid high prices for his work). The 19th century stigmatized him as a betrayer of the ‘true’ Dutch realistic style. He was, in fact, the last great ‘Fine’ painter, who succeeded in adapting this popular style to history subjects with classically inspired figures. His students included Philip van Dijk, Hendrik van Limborch (1681–1759), Bartholomeus Douven (1688–after 1726), Johann Christian Sperling (1690–1746) and his brother and collaborator, Pieter van der Werff (1661–1722), a painter of portraits and genre pieces in Adriaen’s early style.
J. E. P. Leistra. "Werff, Adriaen van der." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T091174 (accessed May 8, 2012).
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