He was notable as a teacher and renowned for his watercolours and paintings of historical genre with emphasis on military figures.

David Bles, Alexander Hugo Bakker Korff and Charles Rochussen were his contemporary artists who followed the same painting genre.

[2] He was born in The Hague on 16 February 1822, the son of Jan Herman ten Kate (1789–1860), and Johanna Henriette Adriana de Witte van Haemstede[3] (1792–1858).

Some of Ten Kate's paintings, which were very popular with the public, depicted interior scenes of guard rooms with Spanish or Dutch soldiers in uniform.

Ten of Kate's paintings were exhibited in museums in The Hague (1867, 1869), Belgium, Germany, Italy, France (1840-1841), Amsterdam (1868), and Haarlem.