Eglon van der Neer

Eglon van der Neer (1635/36 – 3 May 1703) was a Dutch painter of historical scenes, portraits and elegant, fashionable people, and later of landscapes.

Van der Neer was born in Amsterdam and was probably first taught by his father, Aert van der Neer, who married in Amsterdam in 1629, coming from Gorinchem. Eglon had a least five brothers and sisters, who were baptized in the Nieuwe Kerk between 1640 and 1650. He took lessons from Jacob van Loo, who was then one of the foremost figure painters in Amsterdam.

Around 1654, Van der Neer, who probably had just finished his education with van Loo, traveled to Orange, Vaucluse in the south of France and entered the service of Friedrich von Dohna (1621–1688), governor of the Principality of Orange. Van der Neer stayed for three or four years in Orange and returned to Amsterdam by the end of 1658. There he married (in February) Maria Wagensvelt, the daughter of a wealthy Rotterdam notary. In 1663, van der Neer and his family moved to Rotterdam, where Adriaen van der Werff became his student. He stayed in Rotterdam until his wife died in 1677. In 1679, he moved to The Hague. In 1680 he became a member of the Confrerie Pictura there. Later that year he moved again, taking up his residence at Brussels, where he married the miniature painter Marie Du Chastel in the following year. She bore him nine children.

In Brussels, van der Neer established a good relationship with the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, the Marquess of Castanaga. In 1687, van der Neer was appointed court painter to the Spanish King Charles II of Spain. In 1689, when Carlos' first wife died, van der Neer portrayed one of the new wedding candidates, Maria Anna of Neuburg.

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