History of Holland > Dutch painters > Dutch genre painters > Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722)

Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722)

Italian and French influences become apparent in this time period, as may be seen in the work Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722). He received three and four thousand guilders for his slick, fashionable productions at the time that Rembrandt's work had gone down to fifty or sixty guilders.

"The Repentant Magdalene", long accredited to Correggio, but now cataloged as of van der Werff's School, may well be of his own brush. It is in perfect accord with the smooth, decorative, namby-pamby art in which he revelled. The cold, porcelain-like colour and mechanical finish of this artist in the treatment of the nude is only offset by a general accomplishment and certainty of execution, but his style is entirely vicious and conventional.

Another work by Adriaen van der Werff is a "portrait of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough", a british commander-in-chief during the War of the Spanish Succession.