Biography

Dutch painter, draftsman, and etcher (also Constantijn Daniel à Renesse). He was the son of a minister, theologian and house chaplain to the stadholder of Friesland. He was a pupil of Rembrandt.

Some 85 drawings are attached to the name of Constantijn van Renesse, in various attributional certainty. They show the artist to have been a thinking man, with broader interests and greater self-reflection than most of his colleagues. As dedicated as he was to drawing, painting and printmaking, he was too well-born to be a professional artist and to submit to the authority of a craftsman's guild. In 1653 he became town secretary of Eindhoven, a post he held for the rest of his life.