The broke artist of New Zealand - Grave Story 117

Buried in debt, famous Dutch-born artist Petrus van der Velden ended up before a magistrate in a Wellington court. Unable to pay board and lodgings, he said he only cared about art. And he did what he usually did. He drew the courtroom scene before him.
Yet, today, he would be counted as one of New Zealand's premier artists with his works shown in galleries and private collections up and down the country.
Indeed, Vincent van Gogh considered him a solid and genuine painter.

Te Papa Tongarewa, in fact, had to re-catalogue 36 drawings supposed to have come from van der Velden after it was discovered they were by notorious forger Karl Sim - aka Goldie.

Van der Velden was born on May 5, 1837 in Rotterdam to Jacoba van Essel and Joannes van der Velden. His artistic career started when he was around 13 with drawing lessons and he was apprenticed to a lithographer. He founded his own lithographic printing company in 1858.
His earliest works date from around 1864 and he began studying at the academies of Rotterdam and Berlin and later stayed at The Hague until 1888.
He had a tendency to work on series, like fisher-folk, down-trodden women and musicians.
In 1890, supported by the founder of Sumner School for the Deaf, Gerrit van Asch, he, aged 53, and his wife, Sophia, a daughter and two sons moved to New Zealand. He settled in Christchurch and began teaching.
Then he discovered Otira Gorge on the West Coast and started producing what would be his most famous set of works.
A student recalled that when a storm brewed, van der Velden would go to the gorge and when it was sunny he would lie in the grass and sleep.
In Art Society shows, his work was greeted with critical acclaim and one of his most famous paintings, Waterfall in the Otira, sold for £300 - which would be a great deal back then.
In 1898 he and his family moved to Sydney, Australia but a year later his wife died and he ended up ill himself in a convalescent home.
It was in Sydney he met the woman who was to become his second wife, Australia Wahlberg, and they moved to Wellington in 1904 where they married.
It was in Wellington he got into serious financial trouble owing £73 for board to the landlord of the Bellevue Hotel in Lower Hutt.
His answers to whether he could pay the debt were so confusing the perplexed magistrate appeared to think he might be a bit unhinged and would not make an order against him.
On a visit to Auckland in 1913 he caught bronchitis, had a heart attack and died. He is buried in an unmarked grave in Waikaraka Cemetery.