Abstract
Philips Wouwerman was born in Haarlem in 1618. He was the eldest son of the painter Paul Joosten and Susanna van den Bogert. His two brothers, Pieter and Johannes Wouwerman, were also to become painters. Philips probably received his first painting lessons from his father. According to Cornelis de Bies1, he was next apprenticed to John Wynants and Frans Hals. He is subsequently reputed to have spent several weeks in 1638 or 1639 working in Hamburg in the studio of the german painter Evert Decker. In 1640 Wouwerman became a member of an art guild, in Haarlem and in 1646 he became the director of the Saint Luke guild. In view of the many southern elements in his landscapes it has frequently been suggested that Wouwerman travelled to France or Italy. However, there is no documentary evidence of his having left Haarlem for any length of time. He was a very prolific painters and when he died on 19 May 1668, he left more than six hundreds paintings and the same amount of drawings. He evidently attained a certain degree of prosperity, going by the relatively large sums of money each of his seven children inherited on his widow's death in 1670 and by the various houses he owned2.
Wouwerman was greatly inspired by Pieter Van Laer (1599-after 1642), known as il Bamboccio. The latter lived in Rome from 1626 to 1638, where he painted scenes of everyday life and genre painting called « bambochades »3.
Wouwerman's oeuvre consists mainly of small cabinet pieces with horses, such as battle and hunting scenes, army camps and interiors of stables. He also painted sensitively executed silvery-grey landscapes, genre pieces and a few original representations of religious and mythological scenes. Wouwerman was exceptionally prolific. Although he only lived to the age of 48, more than a thousand paintings bear his name. His pupils include Nicolaes Ficke, Jacob Warnars, Emanuel Murant and his brothers Pieter (1623-1682) and Jan Wouwerman (1629-1666). He had many followers and his paintings were much sought after in the 18th and early 19th centuries, especially in France4.
The French market for Wouwerman painting is much more important than in England. How can it be explained?
