Pieter Wouterman
First and last name
Pieter Wouterman
Date of birth
1623, Haarlem
Date of death
1682, Amsterdam
Pieter Wouterman, born in 1620 in Haarlem, was the brother of landscape painters Jan and Philips Wouwerman. According to Arnold Houbraken, a biographer of artists from the Dutch Golden Age, all three earned their living by selling Italian landscapes in the style of Pieter van Laer. Houbraken mentioned a story in which Philips Wouwerman burned his sketchbooks before his death so that his brother could not use them to profit from his name, although he considered it a rumor.
In another account, when Pieter van Laer returned to Haarlem, his art had lost value compared to what he received in Rome, but he refused to lower his prices. When a landscape by Laer was deemed too expensive, a buyer commissioned the young Philips Wouwerman to copy it, which helped launch Wouwerman's career at van Laer's expense. According to Houbraken, Wouwerman felt guilty and burned all his trial proofs of copies before his death.
Pieter Wouterman was a student of Roelant Roghman and his older brother Philips, as well as their father, Pouwels. In 1657, he left Haarlem and settled in Amsterdam, where he died in 1682.
