Wouterus Verschuurartist • painter • watercolourist • draughtsmanAmsterdam 1812-1874 Vorden

Wouterus Verschuur was already a famous horse painter in his time. From his teacher, the early romantic cattle painter P.G. van Os, he learns to record their build and movements to perfection and, like the British 18th-century George Stubbs, he took an interest in their character. He copied the compositional schemes and the upholstery from the 17th-century Philips Wouwerman: in the background a stable opening with a fungus in a beam of light as an eye-catcher, placed centrally in the performance; horses in all kinds of poses and from different angles, involved in all kinds of activities. He painted strong farm horses in stables and energetic harness horses, but also slender riding horses during an afternoon ride with their wealthy owners. Until well into the nineteenth century, horses still had the same place and function as in the seventeenth century, and the infrastructure for horses was essentially the same. Until the late 19th century, horses – as well as other animals – were depicted more or less in an idealized manner. They fulfilled an important social function as a means of transport for people and goods, as a draft horse to work the land, as a military horse in wartime and during hunting. And in the Netherlands not to be forgotten as a draft horse for smaller ships along the draft canals. From the end of the 19th century, the Impressionists started to see the animal differently and the depiction became more natural and less posed. Verschuur was also a clever dog painter. These animals appear in most of his paintings.

Verschuur was not only known in his own country, he also attracted attention abroad. In 1855, Napoleon III bought one of his entries at the Paris World's Fair. Verschuur also taught the painting trade to his son Wouterus Verschuur Jr. and Anton Mauve also learned to paint the draft horse in the short time that he worked in 1858 at Verschuur's studio in Haarlem. During his life, Verschuur was awarded the Felix Meritis prize several times, in 1831 and 1832. He was also a member of the Royal Academy and of Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam. In addition to working in Switzerland, the South of France and Germany, Verschuur also worked a lot in Gelderland, where he died in Vorden in 1874.