Caspar Netscher Charcoal Portrait Drawing, circa 1670

Provenance: This work comes from the personal collection of Perry Townsend Rathbone (July 3, 1911 – January 15, 2000,) one of the leading American art museum directors of the 20th century.

Biography: Caspar Netscher was born in 1636 or 1639 in Heidelberg or Prague. After the death of his father circa 1640–1642, the family appears to have moved to Arnhem, where Netscher apparently attended the local Latin School before taking drawing lessons with Hendrick Coster (active 1638–1659). Around 1654–1655 Netscher moved to Deventer to study with Gerard ter Borch the Younger (1617–1681). His apprenticeship there is confirmed by signed copies he made after Ter Borch’s work as well as by his presence as a model in the The Suitor’s Visit by Ter Borch in the collection of The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.Netscher remained in Ter Borch’s studio until about 1658–1660 and, like his teacher, became an outstanding portraitist and a master of portraying the social interactions of the Dutch elite. He also developed an exquisite painting technique that allowed him to imitate a wide range of textures, whether linen, satin, or the rough NAP of an oriental rug. Around 1659 Netscher traveled to Bordeaux, where he met and married his wife, Margareta. The couple and their first child, born in Bordeaux in 1661, returned to the Netherlands in 1662 owing to the increasingly hostile attitude toward Protestants in France at that time. After settling in the courtly city of The Hague, Netscher found a clientele eager for refined scenes of ladies at their toilet, musical companies, and gallant soldiers. He became a member of the local painters’ confraternity (Schilders Confrerie Pictura) in October 1662, and he is documented in that city nearly every year until his death in 1684.