Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 5, 1913.djvu/491

SECTION XXI EGLON HENDRIK VAN DER NEER EGLON HENDRIK VAN DER NEER was one of the numerous children of Aert van der Neer, the famous painter of winter landscapes and moonlight scenes. According to Houbraken (Groote Schouburgh^ iii. 172), he was born at Amsterdam in 1643. Possibly the date is a misprint for 1634 ; such misprints are numerous in Houbraken's book. For he says (iii. 174) that E. H. van der Neer, who died at Dtisseldorf, May 3, 1703, painted up to his seventieth year. If we subtract 69 from 1703, the date of his death, we arrive at the year 1634. After studying under his father, he went to Jacob van Loo, the portrait and genre painter. He may have owed to the elder Van der Neer his predilection for landscape, although his technique and style show no resemblance to those of his father, but derive from older models, especially Adam Elsheimer, whom he imitated in so-called heroic landscape, animated with small Biblical or mythological figures. Again, the influence of the very distinctive art of Jacob van Loo can scarcely be traced in the pictures of our Van der Neer. When he recalls his predecessors, it is the work of Metsu and Ter Borch especially which comes to mind. After completing his studies, Van der Neer at the age of twenty set out for France, and, probably while on his way to Italy, stayed for three or four years with Count von Dohna, the Dutch governor of the principality of Orange. In 1659 ne was a g a i n m Holland, and married Maria Wagensvelt at Rotterdam. He lived by turns at Rotterdam, at Amsterdam, at The Hague, and, after the death of his wife in 1677, at Brussels, where he can be traced from 1679 to 1689. Then he went back to Amsterdam. From 1690 he lived at Dusseldorf. There his second wife Marie died ; she was a daughter of the Flemish painter Fra^ois du Chattel, and was herself a good miniature painter. In December 1697 Van der Neer was married, for the third time, to another artist, Adriana, daughter of the Dtisseldorf court painter Johannes Spilberg, and widow of the painter Willem Breekvelt. He had been appointed to succeed Spilberg in 1690, and held the post till his death. As we have indicated, the art of E. H. van der Neer includes mainly two fields heroic landscape, clearly based on Elsheimer, and genre, related 475