Melchior de Hondecoeter
1635-1695
Dutch
Melchior de Hondecoeter Gallery
Melchior d'Hondecoeter (c. 1636 ?C April 3, 1695), Dutch animalier painter, was born at Utrecht, and died in Amsterdam. After the start of his career, he painted virtually exclusively bird subjects, usually exotic or game, in a park-like landscapes.
Being the grandson of Gillis d'Hondecoeter and son of Gijsbert d'Hondecoeter, as well as nephew of Jan Baptist Weenix, he was brought up by the last to the profession of painting, when his father died. Of Weenix we know that he married Gilles daughter Josina in 1638. Melchior was, therefore, also related to Jan Weenix. The latter told Arnold Houbraken, in his youth Melchior was extremely religious, praying very loud, so his mother and uncle doubted if they would have him trained as a painter.
In 1659 he was working in the Hague and became a member of the painters' academy at the Hague. In 1663 Hondecoeter married Susanne Tradel in Amsterdam. While she was captious and having her sisters living in their house, Hondecoeter spent much time in his garden or drinking in the tavern in the Jordaan. On the Lauriergracht, where he used to live, he was surrounded by art dealers and various painters. Later he moved to a house on Prinsengracht. In 1686 he bought a small countryhouse in Vreeland. Hondecoeter died in the house of his daughter Isabel in Warmoesstraat but was buried in Westerkerk near his house. His inventory lists a small gallow, to keep birds in the right position, and several paintings of Frans Snyders.
Melchior began his career with a different speciality from that by which he is usually known. Mr de Stuers affirms that he produced sea-pieces. One of his earliest works is a "Tub with Fish," dated 1655, in the gallery of Brunswick. But Melchior soon abandoned fish for fowl. He acquired celebrity as a painter of birds only, which he represented not exclusively, like Johannes Fyt, as the gamekeeper's perquisite after a day's shooting, or stock of a poulterer's shop, but as living beings with passions, joys, fears and quarrels, to which naturalists will tell us that birds are subject. Without the brilliant tone and high finish of Fyt, his Dutch rival's birds are full of action; and, as Burger truly says, "Hondecoeter displays the maternity of the hen with as much tenderness and feeling as Raphael the maternity of Madonnas." Related Paintings of Melchior de Hondecoeter :. | Floating Feather | Birds in a Park | Das Vogelkonzert | Birds and a Spaniel in a Garden (mk25) | Still life with birds | Related Artists: ZURBARAN Francisco deSpanish Baroque Era Painter, 1598-1664
Spanish painter. He was apprenticed in 1614 to a painter in Sevilla (Seville), where he lived until 1658 when he moved to Madrid. He had a few royal commissions but remained throughout his life a provincial painter of religious pictures. His apostles, saints, and monks are painted with almost sculptural modeling, and his emphasis on the minutiae of their dress lends verisimilitude to their miracles, visions, and ecstasies. This distinctive combination of naturalism with religious sensibility conforms to the guidelines for Counter-Reformation artists outlined by the Council of Trent. He had numerous commissions from monasteries and churches throughout southern Spain, and many of his works were sent to Lima, Peru. MacLeod, William DouglasAmerican, 1811-92 Adriaen van der SpeltAdriaen van der Spelt (ca. 1630, Leiden - 1673, Gouda), was a Dutch Golden Age flower painter.
According to Houbraken, whose comments were based on the Gouda stories by Ignatius Walvis, he was an excellent flower painter born in Leiden, but his parentage was from Gouda. He spent many years at the court of Brandenburg working for Frederick William I, Elector of Brandenburg, but moved to Gouda to marry a third time with a nasty wife from Groningen who drove him to his grave.
According to the RKD he was a flower painter who spent the years 1664-1670 at the court of Brandenburg.
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