Caspar Netscher

A young woman takes a moment from her spinning to look out from a dark room, her gaze direct. Although she holds a long length of raw half-spun wool, her mind isn‘t on the task. She’s more interested in whoever has taken her by surprise.Netscher specialised in small genre scenes before he took to...

At first glance, Caspar Netscher shows two delightful children, both busy. The girl is learning to read while the boy plays with the dog, his toys, including a top, thrown down on the floor.There may be moral in the painting, though it was more likely to have been bought for amusement. In a popul...

A young woman sits on a stone bench in a garden. She leans on a plinth as if trying to be at ease but her bodice, stiffened with whalebone, forbids her to relax. She sits upright, her eyes alert as if expecting someone. Who she might be expecting remains a mystery, since we don't know her identit...

In Netscher’s painting, the hand resting gently on the little girl’s shoulder suggests that the woman is her mother. There is a faint likeness: the little girl still has the rounded cheeks of childhood, but the eyes and mouth of the two are similar.Netscher was famous for his brilliant representa...

A velvet curtain drawn back from a stone window reveals a little boy, who gazes upwards at a bubble floating past him and into the darkness. In the shadows behind, a smaller child concentrates equally fiercely. Using a long pipe he blows bubbles in the soapy liquid held in a cockle shell. Already...

A young man stands leaning to one side, his arm resting on a stone plinth. His gaze is soft and he has a slight smile on his face. The artist has concentrated on the long curled hair, the elaborate and expensive lace, and his long fingers.The plinth shows a relief carving of Eros, the god of love...

With a glance, a lifted hand, the turn of a head, the artist has made a picture that invites interpretation. This was such a popular composition at the time that several copies were made of Caspar Netscher’s original (now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich). This is one of the copies.Pictures of musi...