Caspar Netscher

In 1659 a young Dutch painter set sail for Rome, the pilgrimage nearly every ambitious artist of his day dreamed of. Caspar Netscher never arrived. He got only as far as Bordeaux in France, married there, and within a few years had settled instead in The Hague, the seat of the Dutch government.

He had trained in the north under Gerard ter Borch, the great painter of quiet domestic scenes, and Netscher was his most gifted pupil, turning out small pictures of everyday life in the same restrained key. Once in The Hague, though, he found his real market in portraits. He gave the Dutch elite, William III of Orange among his sitters, exactly what they wanted: figures in shimmering satin, silk and oriental carpet, painted with a jeweller's patience.

That taste for luxury became a family trade. Two of his sons, Theodoor and Constantijn, trained under him and kept painting in his polished manner after his death in 1684.