Smith, John: A catalogue raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French painters: in which is included a short biographical notice of the artists, with a copious description of their principal pictures : a statement of the prices at which such pictures have been sold at public sales on the continent and in England; a reference the the galleries and private collections in which a large portion are at present; and the names of the artists by whom they have been engraved; to which is added, a brief notice of the scholars & imitators of the great masters of the above schools (Part 6) (London: Smith and Son, 1835)

JOHN HACKAERT.

1 here are artists in every school whose pictures
are so unequal in merit, that while a portion of them
may justly rank with the best productions of the pencil,
and are valued accordingly, another, and sometimes
the larger portion, are only fit to mingle with the works
of their imitators, and those of inferior painters ; and
although fashion, which most unaccountably has its
influence on works of art, may raise inferior produc-
tions into notice and value, the reign of such delusion
is, and must be, ephemeral. These observations refer,
not only to the painter now under notice, but are also
equally applicable to the preceding one, and others
already treated of in this work, and are now incidentally
introduced to prevent that surprise, and perhaps a worse
feeling, which amateurs express when four or five
hundred guineas are asked for a picture by a master,
whose works, in general, seldom pass in the market for
more than forty, or at most sixty or seventy pounds.
John Hackaert was a native of Amsterdam, and
is supposed to have been born about the year 1635.