Landscape painter Hendrik Kruseman Van Elten began his artistic study with Cornelis Lieste after moving to Haarlem in 1844. He stayed with his teacher for five years, also working at the Haarlem Academy. During the 1850s, Van Elten had a studio in Amsterdam. He traveled throughout northern Europe and spent two years in residence in Brussels. Despite success in Europe, he decided to move to New York in 1865, where he was welcomed into the Tenth Street Studio Building by his countryman, Mauritz F. H. de Haas.
Van Elten remained in the United States for eight years. Dissatisfied with his inability to make a living, he sold his studio contents in New York in 1873 and returned to Europe for several years. By 1875, however, he was back in the Tenth Street Building, exhibiting at the Academy Annual. He lived in New York until the end of the century, when he once again moved to Europe, settling in Paris. His primary New York dealer was William Macbeth, whom he counseled on the purchase of Dutch old master paintings.
The obituary read into the Academy Minutes after Van Elten's death stressed his personality: "His genial manner, his gentleness, the patience with which he bore the isolation caused by his defective hearing, endured him to all." In the years following Van Elten's 1905 estate sale, his widow donated 12 etchings and 10 oil sketches to the National Academy.
