Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 5, 1913.djvu/492

 476 EGLON HENDRIK VAN DER NEER SECT. to the great masters Metsu and Ter Borch. To these must be added a number of portraits, which usually remind one of Netscher, and are often mistaken for his work. His dependence on his predecessors caused him to neglect the study of nature. We seek in vain from our Van der Neer the wonderfully delicate observation of aerial perspective and effects of light which have made Dutch landscape painting famous. Yet he took some interest in details. Houbraken relates that near his house in Brussels he had a large bare courtyard stretching to the city wall. In this he grew plants, and built a little shed which he could move about, and from which he could paint nature at close quarters. The story accounts for the carefully finished plants and shrubs which Van der Neer likes to introduce in the foregrounds of his landscapes, and which testify to a faithful study of nature. In his interiors he is harder than his masters. There is no freedom in his compositions. His groups look stiff, and his single figures are affected, especially the ladies who take something with arms outstretched and fingers spread out. His talent is best shown in pictures of single figures like those at Karlsruhe, at Dresden, and in the Adrian Hope sale (see Nos. 67, 65, and 84). In these he comes nearest to his predecessors. The " Lady tuning a Lute " at Dresden is, in fact, copied from a Metsu at Kassel ("The Girl tuning the Lute," 146), and is described by Smith as the work of Metsu (Sm. 114),* although, like Van der Neer's art as a whole, it is far inferior to Metsu in technical quality, as in the rendering of textures, and so forth. Altogether, E. H. van der Neer was not more than a capable painter of the second rank, who might perhaps have done some distinctive and pleasing work if he had been born ten or twenty years earlier. The opinion held of him to-day no longer corresponds to the worldly honours which he enjoyed in his lifetime. PUPILS AND IMITATORS OF EGLON HENDRIK VAN DER NEER The only pupil of our painter, who is worth mentioning, is Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722). He will be treated in one of the later volumes of this work, and need not therefore be discussed here. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE In the references added to the entries in the Catalogue "Sm." = Smith, "Catalogue Raisonne," vol. iv. (1833). "Sm. Suppl." = Smith, "Catalogue Raisonne," Supplement (1842). 1 See note to Metsu 146, Vol. I. p. 295.