Verschuring, Henry

, a Dutch painter,- was the son of a captain, and born at Gorcum in 1727. Having discovered an early turn for designing, his father placed him at eight years of age with a portrait-painter at Gorcum, but at the age of thirteen he left this master to learn the greater principles of his art at Utrecht. After he had continued about six years with Both, a painter of good reputation there, he went to Rome, where he frequented the academies, and employed himself in designing after the best models. His genius leading him to paint animals, hunting, and battles, he studied every thing that might be useful to him in those ways. He also designed landscapes, | and the famous buildings, not only in the neighbourhood of Rome, but all over Italy; which employment gave him a relish for architecture. After residing ten years in Italy, he resolved to return to his own country. He passed through Switzerland into France; and, while he was at Paris, met with a young gentleman who was going to make the tour of Italy, and was prevailed on to accompany him, after spending three years more in Italy, he came back to Holland, arriving at Gorcum in 1C62. His taste for battlepieces induced him to make a campaign in 1672, in the course of which he designed all the circumstances and accompaniments of war. His genius was fruitful; there was a great deal of fire in his imagination and in his works; and, as he had studied much after nature, he formed a particular taste which never degenerated into what is called manner, but comprehended a great variety of objects, and had more of the Roman than the Flemish in it. Such was the pleasure he took in his profession, that he had always a crayon in his hand; and, wherever he came, designed some object or other after nature. His best perfomances are at the Hague, Amsterdam, and Utrecht.

He was a man of so excellent a character, that he was chosen to be one of the magistrates of the city he lived in; and he accepted the office, with the condition that he should not be obliged to quit his profession. He was in the full career of fame and esteem both as a man and an artist, when, happening to undertake a small voyage, he was cast away two leagues from Dort, and drowned the 6th of April, 1G90, aged sixty-two. ¹