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Catharina Pietersdr Hooft (28 December 1618 – 30 September 1691) was a woman of the Dutch Golden Age. She became famous at a very early age, when she was painted by Frans Hals.
At the age of sixteen she married Cornelis de Graeff, nineteen years her senior and the most powerful regent and mayor of Amsterdam. Thus she became the first lady of Soestdijk, one of the family's country houses. Catharina Hooft was also a Lord of the High and free Fief of Purmerland and Ilpendam.
When stadtholder William II died in 1650, ten years later followed by his wife, Cornelis de Graeff was made one of the guardians of the ten-year-old William III, the "child of state", who played in the autumn of 1661 in Graeff's country house at Soestdijk Palace with her son's. The 1660 painting The Arrival of Cornelis de Graeff and Members of His Family at Soestdijk, His Country Estate by Jacob van Ruisdael and Thomas de Keyser shows Catharina Hooft sitting in a carriage with her husband upon their arrival at Soestdijk. Die Ankunft des Ehepaars De Graeff in Soestdijk, painted by Ruisdael and De Keyser Her two sons Pieter and Jacob ride the horses, and the three figures who are standing on the roadside to the right of center are her brothers-in-law Willem Schrijver, Pieter Trip family and Andries de Graeff. rkd.nl Cornelis de Graeff and his wife and sons arrive at their country house Soestdijk, ca. 1660
Opposite the De Graeffs' house Soestdijk lived the powerful anti-Orangist Bicker family, consisting of Catharina’s brother-in-law and sister-in-law and their four daughters. One of whom, Wendela Bicker, married Catharina Hooft’s nephew, Grand Pensionary Jan de Witt.
Catharina was widowed in 1664. After the sudden death of her son Jacob's first wife Maria van der Does in 1667 he began courting Anna Christina Pauw van Bennebroek. De 500 Rijksten van de Republiek: Rijkdom, geloof, macht en cultuur, von Kees Zandvliet (see #16, Johan de Graeff) She was the only daughter of Adriaen Pauw, President of the Hof (Court) van Holland Dispereert niet: twintig eeuwen historie van de Nederlanden, book 2 and granddaughter of former Grand Pensionary Adriaan Pauw. But since De Graeff's mother Catharina Hooft didn't like the Paauwen at all de she was against marrying a member of the Pauw family regent family and even enlisted the help of her nephew Johan de Witt to prevent her son Jacob from marrying Anna Christina Pauw van Bennebroek.
In 1672 when William III. of Orange stepped out of the shadows to become General captain and stadtholder, she changed political tack and – with her sons – became a supporter of the House of Orange. William bought the De Graeff hunting lodge and its surrounding fields, the later Soestdijk Palace, from Jacob de Graeff for only 18,755 Dutch guilder. In 1678 Catharina Hooft inherited the high Lordship of Purmerland and Ilpendam from her cousin Maria Overlander van Purmerland (daughter of her maternal uncle Volkert Overlander and widow of Frans Banning Cocq), De Nederlandsche leeuw: Maandblad van het Koninklijk Hetaldiek-Genealoogik Genootschap, books 1895-1900, p 136 which she owned half with her son Jacob, Aardrijkskundig woordenboek der Nederlanden, part 6, p 117, by A. J. van der Aa who was also Maria's full nephew. Hooft outlived her husband by thirty years. She died in Ilpendam and was buried in Amsterdam on October 6, 1691.
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