She attended the Academie Minerva in Groningen She also studied with Paul Gabriël in Paris.

[1] She married fellow painter Taco Mesdag (1829–1902) and the couple settled in The Hague.

[2] Mesdag-van Calcar exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.

[3] She received an honorable mention at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889.

[1] After her husband's death in 1902, Mesdag-van Calcar moved to Kortenhoef, where she built a studio.