Hendrick Coster (circa 1615-after 1664)

• Was a Dutch painter specialized in portraits.
• Hendrick Coster (also called Hendryck Coster or Koster) was probably born in Arnhem between 1610 and 1620.
• In July 1639 he married in Jutphaas with Florentina van Hardenbroek.
• Coster was listed as living in Utrecht on that occasion.
• Shortly after his marriage he returned to Arnhem, where he was registered in the Joseph's Guild in 1639 and where his six children were baptized in subsequent years.
• In 1656 Coster became a member of the Groningen glaziers' and dyers' guild, within which the painters also organized themselves. • He died in 1664 or a few years later.
• In the autumn of 1638, Coster received his first commission from the Court of Guelders.

• For fifty guilders he copied two older portraits of Maarten van Rossum and Duke Charles of Guelders, after which engravings were made for Pontanus' Historia Gelrica.

• His earliest portrait of life, of an anonymous lady, dates from 1642 and bears the inscription 'In Arnhem' (The Hague, Museum Bredius).

• Among Coster's pupils was the famous portraitist Caspar Netscher. 

• Coster signed his works alternately in full, H.Coster fec. or in monogram HC FC. 

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