Catharina Hooft

Catharina as a child, by Frans Hals. In her hand she holds a silver rattle with bells, a status symbol.

Catharina Pietersdr Hooft (28 December 1618 – 30 September 1691) was a woman of the Dutch Golden Age. She became famous at a very early age, when she was painted by Frans Hals.

At the age of sixteen she married Cornelis de Graeff, nineteen years her senior and the most powerful regent and mayor of Amsterdam. Thus she became the first lady of Soestdijk, one of the family's country houses. Catharina Hooft was also a Lady of the High and free Fief of Purmerland and Ilpendam.

Life Origin

Catharina Hooft was born in Amsterdam. Her father, Pieter Jansz Hooft, was a nephew of the Amsterdam burgomaster Cornelis Pietersz. Hooft and related to the renowned poet P. C. Hooft of the Muiderslot, a wealthy patrician. Her mother, Geertruid Overlander (1577–1653), sister of burgomaster Volkert Overlander, was forty-one and she and her husband had given up hope of having children when Catharina was born. She was also related to Amsterdam burgomaster Frans Banning Cocq, the captain of Rembrandt van Rijn's painting The Night Watch, through her cousin Maria Overlander van Purmerland. Likewise, Netherlands great statesman Johan de Witt was her nephew. Catharina Hooft was portrayed at the age of three by Frans Hals in his famous painting Catharina Hooft with her nurse.

Personality of the Golden Age The 18-year-old Catharina Hooft, second wife of Cornelis de Graeff, by Nicolaes Eliasz. Pickenoy in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin

On 14 August 1635, at the age of sixteen, Catharina Hooft married Amsterdam regent and influential statesman Cornelis de Graeff, a widower who was nineteen years older than her, At the side of this powerful man, Catharina's transformation into one of the first women in the country took place. Her two sons Pieter and Jacob ride the horses, and the three figures who are standing on the roadside to the right of center are her brothers-in-law Willem Schrijver, Pieter Trip and Andries de Graeff.

Opposite the De Graeffs' house Soestdijk lived the powerful anti-Orangist Bicker family, consisting of Catharina’s brother-in-law and sister-in-law and their four daughters. One of whom, Wendela Bicker, married Catharina Hooft’s nephew, Grand Pensionary Jan de Witt. She was the only daughter of Adriaen Pauw, President of the Hof (Court) van Holland and granddaughter of former Grand Pensionary Adriaan Pauw. But since De Graeff's mother Catharina Hooft didn't like the Paauwen at all [de Paauwen gantsch niet lustte] she was against marrying a member of the Pauw regent family and even enlisted the help of her nephew Johan de Witt to prevent her son Jacob from marrying Anna Christina Pauw van Bennebroek. which she owned half with her son Jacob, who was also Maria's full nephew. Hooft outlived her husband by thirty years. She died in Ilpendam and was buried in Amsterdam on October 6, 1691.

Coat of Arms

Quartered: I In red, a beardless man's head of silver with golden hair, surrounded by a green laurel wreath (Hooft family); II An antique ploughshare in blue, placed obliquely to the right with the point up (Overlander family); III In gold a red cow (Lons family); IV In blue two wavy silver crossbars, accompanied from above by two gold siskins and from below on the right by a golden star (6) and on the left by a golden ear of wax (Chijs family).