Catharina Backer (22 September 1689 – 8 February 1766) was an art collector and an 18th-century

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

from the Northern Netherlands.

Biography

Catharina Backer - flower still life 1712 - XXXII-B-80

Catharina Backer was born in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

in 1689. Her parents were the lawyer Willem Cornelisz. Backer (1656–1731), of a prominent Amsterdam family, and Magdalena de la Court (1662–1712), the daughter of

Pieter de la Court Pieter de la Court (1618 – May 28, 1685) was a Dutch economist and businessman, he is the origin of the successful De la Court family. He pioneered modern thinking about the economic importance of free competition and was an uncompromising ...

(1618–85) and his second wife, Catharina van der Voort (1622–1674). Catharina Backer married her first cousin, the merchant and art collector Allard de la Court (1688–1755) of Leiden, on 25 August 1711. He was the son of Pieter de la Court van der Voort (1664–1739), Magdalena de la Court's brother. Allard de la Court and Catharina Backer lived in a house on the Rapenburg in Leiden. Their children included Pieter Allardsz de la Court (1722–73). Catharina Backer died in

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

in 1766.

Art collection

Together Allard de la Court and Catharina Backer owned one of the richest art galleries in the Northern Netherlands.

Arnold Boonen Arnold van Boonen (16 December 1669 – 2 October 1729) was a Dutch portrait painter. Life He was born at Dordrecht, in the Dutch Republic in 1669. He was a pupil first of Arnold Verbuis, and then of Godefried Schalken. He painted genre pic ...

(1669–1729) painted their portraits in 1713 as part of a series of four that included her two sisters. After the deaths of their fathers in the 1730s, Allard de la Court and Catharina Backer inherited some of the art that their fathers had collected, although a pair of 1635 portraits by Pieter Dubordieu (1609–78) of their mutual great-grandparents, Pieter de la Court the Elder (1590–1657) and Jeanne des Planques (or Jeanne de Planque, 1591–1663), appears to have passed first to Allard's sister, Adriana Catharina de la Court (1690–1752), before entering Allard's collection following her death. Pieter de la Court van der Voort had been an important patron of

Willem van Mieris Willem van Mieris (3 June 166226 January 1747) was an 18th-century painter from the Northern Netherlands. Biography Willem van Mieris was a painter, sculptor and etcher active in Leiden. He was born in Leiden and studied under his father Frans ...

(1662–1747) and commissioned a pair of paintings,

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

s of fruit and flowers, from

Rachel Ruysch Rachel Ruysch (3 June 1664 – 12 October 1750) was a Dutch still-life painter from the Northern Netherlands. She specialized in flowers, inventing her own style and achieving international fame in her lifetime. Due to a long and successful care ...

(1664–1750). These works became important in Catharina Backer's development as an artist. Her father, Willem Backer, had collected specimens of natural history as well as paintings by artists such as

Jan van Goyen Jan Josephszoon van Goyen (; 13 January 1596 – 27 April 1656) was a Dutch landscape painter. The scope of his landscape subjects was very broad as he painted forest landscapesm marines, river landscapes, beach scenes, winter landscape, cityscap ...

(1596–1656),

Jan Lievens Jan Lievens (24 October 1607 – 4 June 1674) was a Dutch Golden Age painter who was associated with his close contemporary Rembrandt, a year older, in the early parts of their careers. They shared a birthplace in Leiden, training with Pieter La ...

(1607–1674), Frederik de Moucheron (1633–1686), and

Jan van der Heyden Jan van der Heyden (5 March 1637, Gorinchem – 28 March 1712, Amsterdam) was a Dutch Baroque-era painter, glass painter, draughtsman and printmaker. Van der Heyden was one of the first Dutch painters to specialize in townscapes and became ...

(1637–1712). Allard de la Court's spending on art increased after his mother died in 1740, and the art collection grew to completely fill the house on the Rapenburg, compelling the family to seek a new residence. After her husband died in 1755, Backer inherited his art collection. She continued to show and add to the cabinet. In 1766, the year that she died, her estate sold much of her art collection with an auction catalog listing 215 items, including the pair of paintings by Rachel Ruysch. Her own artworks stayed in the family for another century.

Drawing and painting

The

Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

describes Catharina Backer as an amateur artist. Such artists did not paint for a living, nor did they receive the kind of artistic training typical for professional artists. In the seventeenth century, amateur artists in the Netherlands usually belonged to families of high status who valued education and cultivation. As part of her secondary education, Catharina Backer had drawing and painting lessons, arranged by her father. Her brother, Cornelis Backer (1693–1775), catalogued the works of art that she had created by the time of her marriage in 1711. These included ten albums of art as well as paintings. The albums contained her own sketches and drawings, including some that probably date from the time when she was receiving training in art. A later album of Catharina Backer's drawings, apparently assembled in 1722 but including works that date as early as 1706, has been preserved in the collection of the

Amsterdam Museum The Amsterdam Museum, known until 2010 as the Amsterdam Historical Museum, is an Amsterdam-based museum dedicated to the city's past and present. Due to the renovation of its main location, the museum is temporarily located in the building the Amst ...

. The drawings provide some evidence of her artistic education. They depict studies of heads, hands, and the nude figure; studies of fruit; and sketches after other artists. She completed several drawings of sculptures by

Francis van Bossuit Francis van Bossuit (probably 1635, Brussels - 22 September, Amsterdam) was a Flemish sculptor.Venus de' Medici The Venus de' Medici or Medici Venus is a tall Hellenistic marble sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite. It is a 1st-century BC marble copy, perhaps made in Athens, of a bronze original Greek sculpture, following the type of th ...

after François Perrier (1590–1650). The album also features the type of drawings for which she is best known: images of flowers, plants, and insects. Although most of the work in the album is by Catharina Backer, it includes at least one drawing by Cornelis Backer. Catharina Backer is known for painting many subjects, including flowers, fruit, landscapes, and genre pictures. She became a follower of Willem van Mieris, Rachel Ruysch, and

Jan van Huysum Jan van Huysum (or Jan van Huijsum) (15 April 1682 – 8 February 1749) is the most notable member of the Van Huysum family of artists working in Dutch Golden Age of the 17th and 18th centuries; “by common consent, Jan van Huysum has been held ...

(1682–1749), copying examples of their paintings that hung in her house. Late in her career, she created images of flowers in the media of oil on canvas.

Gallery

File:Catharina Backer - Flowers in a vase on a stone ledge.jpg, Catharina Backer, ''Flowers in a Vase on a Stone Ledge'', before 1711 File:Hallwylska museet 2012, tavelgalleriet by Holger Motzkau 01.jpg, Allard de la Court in 1705, by Willem van Mieris File:Rachel Ruysch - flower still life - 1710.jpg, ''Flower Still-Life'' by Rachel Ruysch, from Catharina Backer's collection File:Abraham Mignon - Flower still life SK-A-267.jpg, A painting by

Abraham Mignon Abraham Mignon or Minjon (21 June 164027 March 1679), was a still life painter.Abraham Mignon
at the

from Catharina Backer's collection

References

External links

Catharina Backer
in

1001 Vrouwen uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis ''1001 Vrouwen uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis'' is a compilation of 1001 biographies of famous women of the Netherlands spanning roughly 1700 years. Project The book is the result of a research project called the Digital Women's lexicon of the N ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Backer, Catharina 1689 births 1766 deaths 18th-century art collectors 18th-century Dutch painters 18th-century Dutch women artists Painters from Amsterdam Dutch women painters Art collectors from Amsterdam Flower artists