Career
According to the RKD he travelled to Rome and joined the Bentvueghels with the nickname "Waarnemer" (meaning delegate, observer, or reporter). He worked with Barent Graat and Matthys Pool and consorted with Florentine academy students. He travelled back north around 1680 with the painter Bonaventura van Overbeke.
He is known for ivory and wood sculptures, and his motiefs became popular and are found in the works of other contemporary artists such as January van Mieris and Willem van Mieris, Ignatius van Logteren, Barend Graat, and Nicolaas Verkolje.
According to Roeland van Eynden and Adriaan van der Willigen, in their Geschiedenis der Vaderlandsche Schilderkunst, he was given the title "Waarnemer" by his bent friends in Rome due to his precies observations of the classic statues there. Equipped with the skills to create poetic sculptures, he returned north with Bonaventura van Overbeek, and became an internationally recognized artist due to the unusual tenderness of his ivory sculptures of the classics.