Jan Adam Kruseman

In 1819, at the age of fifteen, he went to Amsterdam and enrolled at the Tekenacademie, where he received his first lessons from his cousin, Cornelis Kruseman.

[2] Three years later, after doing a portrait of Adriaan van der Hoop, a banker with connections to the royal family, he received a commission to paint a posthumous portrait of Tsar Alexander I, intended as a gift for Anna Pavlovna, who was married to Crown Prince William.

After William ascended to the throne, Kruseman was commissioned to paint official portraits of the royal family, including six of the King.

In 1839, along with the engraver André-Benoit Taurel (1794–1859) and Marinus Tétar van Elven (1803–1883), an architect, he became one of the founders of Arti et Amicitiae.

In 1836, his nephew, the future theologian and poet Petrus Augustus de Génestet, came to live with his family after being orphaned.