Philips Wouwerman

Philips Wouwerman was the great horse painter of the Dutch Golden Age. His pictures are full of riders: hunting parties, travellers at an inn, cavalry skirmishes and horse markets, often with a white or dappled grey horse catching the light in the centre.

He was born and worked in Haarlem, joining the painters’ guild in 1640. He is said to have trained with Frans Hals. He was very productive and hugely popular, both in his lifetime and in the eighteenth century, when collectors across Europe sought his works. Around 570 paintings are accepted as his today, and he was widely copied.

A Hawking Party and Cavalier Holding a Dappled Grey Horse show his typical subjects. His paintings hang in the Rijksmuseum, the National Gallery in London, the Hermitage and the Prado. Look at the variety of horse poses and the silvery landscapes behind them.