17th century Dutch school. Atelier of EGLON VAN DER NEER (1635/36 -1703). "Young Woman with a Letter and Two Servants indoors". Oil on panel. With a period frame of lupia wood or root wood.

17th century Dutch school. Atelier of EGLON VAN DER NEER (1635/36 -1703).

"Young Woman with a Letter and Two Servants indoors".

Oil on panel.

With a period frame of lupia wood or root wood.

Measurements: 76 x 53,5 cm.

"Young woman with letter and two servants in a distinguished interior" is a work carried out by Egon van der Neer and his workshop around the year 1673. It is an oil on panel in keeping with the artist's own characteristics, following the features of genre painting. It is set in an interior space. Detail (in the clothes, the faces, the lighting and the distribution of the colours) is a fundamental element.

Detail is not just an aspect that characterises van der Neer's painting, but rather it was the essential link that united all Dutch artists, both during this and earlier periods. In other words, both the genre themes, mainly set in interior rooms, and the observation of reality through a rigorous realism (enhanced by the detailed depiction of each and every one of the elements involved in the scene) were constants typical of the tradition of this European art.

Van der Neer was a Dutch painter primarily of historical scenes and elegant portraits. He was also a landscape painter during his later career and achieved considerable success among his contemporaries. We know that he took lessons from Jacob van Loo, a Dutch Baroque painter who specialised in genre scenes, portraits and even mythological subjects. At that time his master was one of the most important figure painters in Amsterdam.

Around 1654, when van der Neer had just finished his education with Van Loo, he travelled to Orange. In the south of France he entered the service of Friedrich von Dohna, the governor of the Principality of Orange. He remained there for three or four years before returning to Amsterdam at the end of 1658. He opened his own workshop in Rotterdam, where he had Adriaen van der Werff as a pupil. He also lived in The Hague and Brussels. In Brussels Van der Neer became close friends with the Spanish governor of the Netherlands, the Marquis de Gastanaga. His contacts with the nobility also led to his appointment in 1687 as chamber painter to King Charles II of Spain. From 1695 he also obtained commissions from Johann Wilhelm of the Palatinate.

Later Johann Wilhelm offered Van der Neer a position at court as head of the court painters. He then settled in Düsseldorf, where he remained until his last days.