Nationality Netherlands | Name Catharina Backer | |
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Born 1689 Amsterdam Died February 8, 1766, Leiden, Netherlands Parents Willem Cornelisz Backer, Magdalena de la Court Grandparents Pieter de la Court, Cornelis Backer, Catharina van der Voort | ||
Catharina Backer (1689 – 8 February 1766), was an art collector and an 18th-century painter from the Northern Netherlands.
Biography
She was born in Amsterdam as the daughter of the lawyer Willem Backer and Magdalena de la Court. Her parents kept an album and owned a curiosity cabinet with several paintings, and the young Catharina was trained in the arts. She became a follower of Rachel Ruysch, Jan van Huysum and Willem van Mieris and copied examples of their paintings that hung in her house. She married her cousin, the merchant and art collector Allard de la Court of Leiden on 25 August 1711. He owned one of the richest art galleries in the Northern Netherlands, most of which he had inherited from his father Pieter de la Court. Their portraits were painted in 1713 by Arnold Boonen, in a series of 4 including her two sisters. After her husband died in 1755 she continued to show and add to the cabinet, while continuing to practise the art of drawing and painting herself. Her drawing book is in the collection of the Amsterdam archives.
After she died the art collection was sold with an auction catalog listing 215 items, but her own artwork stayed in the family for another century.
According to the RKD she is known for fruit and flower paintings.
She died in Leiden.