Siebe ten Cate - Lake Lucerne with a view of Bürgenstock, 1898

Siebe Johannes ten Cate (1858-1908)

Lake Lucerne with a view of Bürgenstock

1898

Pastel on paper

26 x 40 cm

Frame: 54.5 x 68 cm

The work above has been included by the RKD in the forthcoming digital catalogue raisonné of Siebe ten Cate.

Additional information:

The Frisian Impressionist Siebe Johannes ten Cate (1858-1908) was a born traveller. He was born in Sneek and lost both parents at a young age. Thanks to the family capital he inherited, he was able to move to Paris at the age of twenty-two after training in The Hague and Antwerp. There he found his true inspiration and developed into a painter with a distinctive Impressionist style.

In Paris, Ten Cate became friends with artists such as Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley. He shared a studio with Kees van Dongen and met Vincent van Gogh, who mentioned him in his letters. He exhibited regularly in the Netherlands and abroad, including at the prestigious Paris Salon.

Although Paris became his permanent home, he continued to travel extensively. He visited Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, England, Scandinavia, Germany and North Africa. These journeys were an important source of inspiration. His oeuvre moves between tranquil landscapes and lively city views. From Lake Lucerne and the woods around Zwolle to the markets of Seville, the banks of the Thames and the bustling streets of Paris, he recorded everyday life wherever he went.

Ten Cate often worked en plein air, where he could observe changing light and daily life directly. His pastels, his favourite medium, possess a particularly distinctive quality. They capture a moment as if recorded with a camera on a long exposure: movement blurs, forms dissolve softly into one another and the atmosphere lingers. With loose brush and pastel strokes, lively effects of light and a subtle, dreamlike haze, Ten Cate uniquely conveyed light, movement and humanity. Alongside paintings and pastels, he also made a small number of etchings and lithographs.

His work is now included in the collections of, among others, the Rijksmuseum, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée Carnavalet and the Fries Museum. Since 2020, the Siebe ten Cate Foundation has worked to reassess his oeuvre. This has led, among other things, to an extensive RKD study and a catalogue raisonné in 2025, followed by a concise monograph in 2026. Two exhibitions are also being prepared, in both the Netherlands and France.