Chronology 1695-1750521

1695 - 1699

After the death of Christiaan Huygens, the brothers Constantijn II and Lodewijck are the remaining heirs of Hofwijck. Lodewijck lives at Hofwijck with his wife Jacomina Teding van Berkhout. Constantijn II, in the last years of his life, is still occupied with the completion of Christian's book Cosmotheoros. However, he would not live to see the final publication in 1698. He dies in 1697. Lodewijck dies in 1699. With Lodewijck Huygens has also died the last son of the creator of Hofwijck. The following years of the history of the habitation are described below in chronological order.

1699 - 1703

Constantijn Huygens had precisely indicated the order of succession for the Hofwijck country house in his will. It was now the turn of his eldest grandson, Constantijn III, the eldest son of Constantijn II. Under Christiaan and Lodewijck the house had been neglected. Constantijn III has repairs made, which he managed to charge to his aunt Jacomina Teding van Berkhout, Lodewijck's widow, after a lawsuit. A notarial deed dated April 26, 1703 shows that he was no longer alive at that time.

1703 - 1746

According to the arrangement laid down in Constantijn's will, Hofwijck will now pass to his last grandson Constantijn IV, the eldest son of Lodewijck. Constantijn IV, born in 1675, is 28 years old when he received possession and usufruct of Hofwijck. Under him Hofwijck experiences the colorful autumn of the Huygens period.

During his Hofwijck period, Constantijn IV devotes himself with great dedication to collecting and reading his grandfather's writings, letters and notes. He arranges these carefully and chronologically into a ‘diary’, which would be published some century and a half later. He makes transcripts of his grandfather's Latin letters, perhaps with the intention of publishing them, in accordance with the wish expressed by his grandfather in his will. He also creates ‘memorials’ for his deceased relatives in other ways. He probably commissions the painting Hendrik Carré made in 1737 of ‘Father Time’, depicting the greatest discoveries of Christiaan Huygens. He also had Johannes Leemans II make two matching paintings, two still lifes with books, scientific instruments, two plaster portrait medallions and a simple ‘anamorphosis’, an almost burned-out candle, reflected in a shiny cylinder.