Philips Wouwerman was one of the most versatile and prolific artists of the Dutch Golden Age. Embedded in the artistic environment and tradition of his home town of Haarlem, Wouwerman made an important and highly influential contribution to the canon of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. His pictures were in demand during his lifetime, but evenmore sought after in the 18th century. Throughout Europe, formerly princely art collections like in Dresden and St. Petersburg still bear witness to this widespread and great admiration of Wouwerman's elegant and picturesque refined works of art. Born in Haarlem in 1619, the son of a now altogether obscure painter named Pouwels Joostsz. Wouwerman, little is known about the artistic schooling of Wouwerman. According to Cornelis de Bie, he studied with Frans Hals (1581/85-1666), but the particular style of Hals didn't leave a footmark on his oeuvre. Apart from a short stay in Hamburg at the end of the 1630es, Wouwerman seemed to have lived in Haarlem during his whole artistic career and died as a well-respected member of the community at the age of 48. He joined the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1640 and here took on several official posts in the years to come.[1] At an early age, Wouwerman married Anna Pietersz. van Broeckhoff with whom he had ten children. Seven of them survived and, after the death of their mother in 1670, accepted a substantial inheritance. Wouwerman also worked as an estate agent in his home town, as many documents in Haarlem archives mentioned the artist in this context. Wouwerman started his artistic career with simple depictions of everyday life in the tradition of the bamboccianti by Pieter van Laer (1592/99-after 1642). Over the next thirty years he developed an individual style, treating a wide range of subjects from genre and landscape to military and religious scenes (equestrian scenes, hunting and hawking parties, landscapes with travellers, cavalry battles and military encampments, peasants festivities etc.). Yet his skills are legendary as regards the depiction of horses of all breeds seen in motion, and the masterpieces from his best period (around 1650-1660) are of indisputably high quality, beautifully combining imaginary southern landscapes and a typically Dutch atmosphere. Wouwerman's fine paintings - displaying delicate, subdued colours, a cool atmosphere and a wealth of witty, anecdotal details. He died in Haarlem.