Eglon van der Neer started his career painting refined à la mode scenes in his native Amsterdam in the late 1650s. Inspired by Pieter de Hooch’s and Ter Borch’s innovative interiors - both artists Van der Neer no doubt knew personally - he forged a style entirely his own, integrating the sophisticated novelties found in their works.

The rich and alluring world that Van der Neer painted was the one in which his clients lived: high society and aristocracy. Van der Neer served three years as a court painter to Count Dohna, the governor of the small Princedom of Orange. Having been appointed in 1687 as court painter to the Spanish king Carlos II, he entered the service of the mighty Elector Palatine Johann Wilhel...