His father, Abraham Florentius Verster van Wulverhorst, was an administrator of the National Museum of Natural History in Leiden and a renowned scholar and painter of birds.

His younger brother Cees developed into an art critic and later a curator of the Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden.

Between 1880 and 1884 Verster continued his training at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague where he counted among his fellow-students George Hendrik Breitner, Isaac Israëls and Willem de Zwart.

The next seven years he experimented in still life painting under the influence of his brother-in-law and of French painters Antoine Vollon and Théodule Ribot.

Partly under their influence Verster began working with a rough brush strokes and intense colors.