Eglon van der Neer

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Eglon van der Neer (1634, Amsterdam - May 3, 1703, Düsseldorf) was a Dutch painter.

Van der Neer was first taught by his father, Aernout van der Neer, and then took lessons from Jacob van Loo, whose chief business then consisted in painting figures in the landscapes of Jan Wynants and Meindert Hobbema. When van Loo went to Paris in 1663 to join the school from which François Boucher afterwards emerged, he was accompanied or followed by Eglon. But, leaving Paris about 1666, he settled at Rotterdam, where he dwelt for many years. Later on he took up his residence at Brussels, and finally went to Dusseldorf, where he entered the service of the Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine. In each of the places where he stopped Eglon married, and having had three wives became the father of twenty-five children. A portrait of the princess of Neuberg led to his appointment as painter to the king of Spain.

Eglon van der Neer has painted landscapes imitating those of his father, of Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, and of Adam Elsheimer. He frequently put the figures into the town views of Jan van der Heyden in competition with Berchem and Adriaen van de Velde. His best works are portraits, in which he occasionally came near Gerard ter Borch or Gabriel Metsu in delicacy of touch, Pieter de Hooch in effectiveness of lighting, or Frans van Mieris, Sr. in polish of surface.

One of his earliest pieces in which the influence of Gerard ter Borch is apparent is the "Lady with the Book", of 1665, which was sold with the Bredel collection in 1875. "A young woman in white and red satin" at Rotterdam, of 1669, recalls Mieris, whose style also reappears in Eglon's "Cleopatra" at Buckingham Palace. Two landscapes with "Tobit and the Angel", dated 1685 and 1694, in the museums of Berlin and Amsterdam, illustrate his fashion of setting Scripture scenes in Dutch backgrounds. The most important of his sacred compositions is the "Esther and Ahasuerus", of 1696, in the Uffizi at Florence. But Eglon varied his practice also with arrangements of hunting and hawking parties, pastures and fords, and cavalry skirmishes. The latest of his panels is a mountain landscape of 1702 in the gallery of Augsburg.