Self-portrait (1699) created by Adriaen van der Werff with the portrait of his wife Margaretha van Rees and their daughter Maria, oil on canvas on panel, 81 cm x 65.5 cm, currently in Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Taking lessons from the age of ten and later specializing in clothes and draperies, Dutch painter Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722) founded his own studio in Rotterdam at the age of seventeen. His future as a painter was brightened in 1696 when Johann Wilhelm, the Elector Palatine and his wife, Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici paid a visit and the couple ordered two paintings.
After the death of when his teacher Van der Neer, in 1703 van der Werff became the official court painter and a knight. Though he was paid handsomely by the Elector for his biblical, mythological and classical paintings, in 1716 he lost his job as the official court painter when the Elector died, leaving the treasury empty.
However, Adriaen van der Werff became one of the most celebrated painters of his times and amassed a huge fortune. Though hailed as the greatest of the Dutch painters throughout the 18th century, his reputation nosedived in the 19th century, ‘when he was alleged to have betrayed the Dutch naturalistic tradition’. And in the age of Victorian prudery, most of his work had to be confined to the cellars of the Alte Pinakothek.
‘Lot and his daughters’ (1711), oil on panel painting by Adriaen van der Werff, size 44.5 cm x 34.5 cm (17.52 in x 13.58 in) located at Hermitage museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
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