HOET, Gerard I
Dutch painter, draftsman, and writer, part of a family of artists. Gerard Hoet I, the son of Moses Hoet (d. after 1665), a glass painter, was principally a history painter in the Dutch Italianate style of Cornelis van Poelenburgh but was also active in other artistic forms, including drawing, on which he wrote a textbook. His elder son, Gerard Hoet II, painted in his father’s manner, before becoming an art dealer; he is chiefly remembered for the controversies in which he engaged concerning the art trade. Hendrick Jacob Hoet (1693-1733), the younger son of Gerard Hoet I, was a genre and still-life painter.
Gerard Hoet I was trained by his father the glass painter Moses Hoet and by Warnard van Ryssen [b. ca. 1625], a student of Cornelis van Poelenburgh. In 1672 Hoet moved to The Hague, then to Paris; after a year he returned to the northern Netherlands via Brussels. He settled in Utrecht, where he founded a drawing academy in 1697 with Hendrick Schoock (active 1669-96). From 1714 Hoet resided in The Hague. He depicted mainly religious, mythological or classical subjects set in landscapes, which were painted on a small scale in the Dutch Italianate style of van Poelenburgh, but he also produced larger works, often with many figures, in an elegant, classicising style. Examples of this decorative painting are his ceiling and wall paintings at the castle of De Slangenburg at Doetinchem. Hoet also painted portraits and some genre pieces. His book on drawing, with 103 prints by Pieter Bodart (active early 18th century), was published in 1712. Hoet also designed many illustrations for bibles.
