Lady Attending to her Toilet

Philip van Dijk
c. 1725
Oil on panel, 29.5 x 23.5 cm.
Mauritsihuis, The Hague
Van Dijck

Dijk, Philip van,
10 January, 1683–2 February, 1753

Philip van Dijck was kiely a student of Arnold Boonen in Amsterdam, but became a student of Adriaen van der Werff in Rotterdam, where he married in 1708. Later the same year, he became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke in Middelburg. In 1718 he became a member of the Confrerie Pictura, where he became a popular painter. Much later he returned to teach at the drawing academy and had various students, including Jan Augustini, Louis de Moni, and Hendrik Pothoven (1725–1807) from 1746. He left the Hague temporarily for 10 years in 1726, when he moved to Kassel to become court painter for William VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. In this capacity, he painted Landgravine Marie Louise of Hesse-Kassel and her family. In 1737 he returned to Middelburg to pay back-dues for the Guild there, and in 1750 he is registered as back to the Hague where he became court painter to Marie Louise's son William IV, Prince of Orange.