CAESAR VAN EVERDINGEN (1616/17-1678)

aetas aurea xvii

Paul Huys Janssen

2001. 4to., ca. 225 pp. text, 160 plts. and ill. (20 in color). Cloth bound with dustjacket

ISBN 90 70288 47 8

Caesar van Everdingen is now justifiably regarded as the most prominent representative of Dutch Classicism. His art is important to the general study of history painting in the Golden Age and particularly to the assessment of the decoration of the Oranjezaal in the Huis ten Bosch at The Hague. New and extensive archival research has made it possible to complete the artist's biography. His oeuvre is presented in the form of a catalogue raisonné.

The book begins with an introduction providing a historiographic review. This is followed by a biography of the artist and an overview of his career and stylistic development. All his known works are included in the catalogue: some thirty history and genre paintings and an equal number of portraits, whose history and iconographic contents are discussed in depth. Special attention is devoted to Van Everdingen's large-scale commissions, such as the decoration of the organ in the Grote Kerk in Alkmaar and the three outstanding works he contributed to the decoration of the Oranjezaal. Over the years he received important commissions not only from the city of Alkmaar and institutions like the Hoogheemraadschap of Rijnland (the polder board of the Rhineland) but also from burghers in Alkmaar and Haarlem. The catalogue is followed by appendixes containing transcriptions and translations of archival documents, lists of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century references to paintings by Van Everdingen and a list of works no longer considered to be by his hand.