His father was the Flemish painter Barend van Someren from Antwerp who had established himself in Amsterdam after a stay in Italy.
[4] The credit for discovering the true identity of Hendrick de Somer and unravelling the confusion with Hendrick van Someren is due to Ulisse Prota-Giurleo who discovered a record of an 'Enrico de Somer' acting as a witness in a legal procedure relating to the marriage of the painter Viviano Codazzi in Naples.
[5] It is now clear that Hendrick van Someren was not born in Naples nor did he work there.
[1] The Dutch biographer of the turn of the 18th century Arnold Houbraken claimed Hendrick van Someren was a good painter of historical allegories, landscapes, and flower still lifes.
The Dutch art historian Godefridus Johannes Hoogewerff made a good, but not entirely convincing attribution of a vanitas still life in a private collection to van Someren.