Reinier De La Haye
Dutch, 1640 - 1695
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Reinier de La Haye was born in The Hague around 1640 as the son of Hendrik de La Haye and Adriana Smulders.1 He was trained by the leading portrait painter Adriaen Hanneman, and in 1662 he was as member of the Guild of St Luke, suggesting he was working as an independent master by then. He moved to Utrecht around 1669, where he became a member of the guild in that year, and from 1672 to 1674 he worked in Antwerp. De La Haye moved in prominent circles and married twice, firstly to Rembalda Edeler van der Planitz (1636 – c.1674),2 and secondly in 1689 to Anna Catherina Roemers (d.1715).
De La Haye painted a small number of still-lifes, elegant genre scenes and equally elegant portraits of members of the upper echalons of society. Unlike his teacher Hanneman, who painted life size portraits, De La Haye generally produced small portraits, meticulously painted, which were increasingly favoured towards the end of the seventeenth century. Surviving portraits by De La Haye are comparatively rare and show his great talent at depicting rich silks and fabrics.