Cornelis Cels
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Cornelis Cels (10 June 1778 – 3 March 1859) was a Flemish painter of portraits and religious subjects.''Corneille Cels''
Adolphe Siret, at the
Biographie Nationale de Belgique The ''Biographie nationale de Belgique'' (; ) is a biographical dictionary of Belgium. It was published by the Royal Academy of Belgium in 44 volumes between 1866 and 1986. A continuation series, entitled the ''Nouvelle Biographie Nationale'' (, ...
, Volume 3, pp. 403–405
He was a professor and director of the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Tournai (Academy of Fine Arts,
Tournai Tournai ( , ; ; ; , sometimes Anglicisation (linguistics), anglicised in older sources as "Tournay") is a city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia located in the Hainaut Province, Province of Hainaut, Belgium. It lies by ...
). He was patronized as a portrait painter by the court of
The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...
.Cornelis Cels
at the
Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...


Life

Cels was born in Lier in the
Duchy of Brabant The Duchy of Brabant, a Imperial State, state of the Holy Roman Empire, was established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant of 1085–1183, and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries. The Duchy comprised part of the Bu ...
in 1778. His family was one of the prominent families in Lier. He initially studied under the sculptor Pompe and then under P.-J. Denis. He later went to study under the Antwerp painter
Andries Cornelis Lens Andries Cornelis Lens or André Corneille Lens (Antwerp, 31 March 1739 – Brussels, 30 March 1822)Andries Lens
at th ...
who had settled in Brussels and was then very successful. He studied under Lens from 1795 to 1800. He travelled to Paris in September 1800 where he worked for a while under fellow Flemish painter
Joseph-Benoît Suvée Joseph-Benoît Suvée (3 January 1743 – 9 February 1807) was a Flemish painter strongly influenced by French neo-classicism. Biography Suvée was born in Bruges. Initially a pupil of Matthias de Visch, he came to France aged 19 and bec ...
, a
Classicist Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...
painter. He then travelled on to Italy where he visited
Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...
and
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and then settled in
Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
where he remained for seven years. While in Rome, he sent his painting ''Cincinnatus'' (current location unknown) to the competition of the Academy of Ghent in 1802 where it won the golden prize.Liévin Armand Marie De Bast, ''Annales du salon de Gand et de l'école moderne des Pays-Bas: Recueil de morceaux choisis parmi les ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, architecture et gravure, exposés au Musée en 1820'', P. F. de Goesin-Verhaeghe, 1823, pp. 79-80 One of his works - a ''Descent from the Cross'' ( St. Paul's Church, Antwerp) - in the Pantheon in Rome. He had been commissioned to paint the work as replacement for works by Rubens, which had been confiscated by the French occupiers.Saint Paul’s, the Antwerp Dominican church, a revelation. No convent church without a choir
/ref> This work was so admired that he was immediately admitted as member and professor of the prestigious
Accademia di San Luca The Accademia di San Luca () is an Italian academy of artists in Rome. The establishment of the Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma was approved by papal brief in 1577, and in 1593 Federico Zuccari became its first ''principe'' or director; ...
in Rome. During his residence in Rome, he painted many other commissions from Catholic institutions in Flanders and the Netherlands for religious works to replace paintings that had been lost to the French plunder. He returned to Flanders and lived and worked in Antwerp until 1815. That year he moved to The Hague, the administrative centre of the new Kingdom of the Netherlands of which the Southern Netherlands had become a part in 1815. Here he enjoyed the patronage of the royal court and was frequently commissioned to paint portraits of the royal family as well as other prominent sitters. He was admitted as a member of the Academy of Antwerp, the Academy of Amsterdam and correspondent of the
Institut Néerlandais The Institut Néerlandais (1957–2013) was a non-profit institution in Paris devoted to the promotion of Dutch art and culture. One of the earliest foreign cultural centers in Paris, it was founded in 1957 by Frits Lugt. The Dutch Ministry of For ...
. He was appointed in 1820 to the professorship of drawing and director at the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Tournai (Academy of Fine Arts, Tournai), positions he held until he resigned in 1827. He subsequently settled in Brussels, where he resided until his death except for a trip to England in 1836. He was the father of Jean-Michel Cels, a landscape painter, and Josse Cels, an architect, who were trained by their father.


Work

Cornelis was a painter of religious subjects as well as portraits. He also produced a few genre paintings. His work was influenced by the Neo-Classicist style becoming prevalent at the end of the 18th century. His masters Lens and Suvée were both representatives of this style in Flanders. File:Aryna van der Pot, by Cornelis Cels.jpg, ''Portrait of Aryna van der Pot'' File:Cornelis Cels - Portrait of Jessy Macpherson.Jpeg, ''Portrait of Jessy Macpherson'' File:Zwitserse boerin Rijksmuseum SK-A-1019.jpeg, ''Swiss farm girl'' File:Cornelis Cels - Portrait of the painter Pierre-François Jacobs.jpg, ''Portrait of the painter ''


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cels, Cornelis 1778 births 1859 deaths Flemish portrait painters Flemish history painters People from Lier, Belgium Painters from Antwerp Province Belgian painters