Cornelis van Spaendonck (7 December 1756 – 22 December 1839) was a Dutch

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

who was a native of

Tilburg Tilburg () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands, in the southern Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant. With a population of 22 ...

. Spaendonck initially worked under artist Guillaume-Jacques Herreyns (1743–1827) in

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

, and in 1773 moved to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

to study and work with his brother, floral painter Gérard van Spaendonck (1746–1822). From 1785 to 1800, Cornelis van Spaendonck was head of the

porcelain Porcelain (), also called china, is a ceramic material made by heating Industrial mineral, raw materials, generally including kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The greater strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to oth ...

works at

Sèvres Sèvres (, ) is a French Communes of France, commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris. It is located from the Kilometre zero, centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department of the Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a populatio ...

. Due to difficulties encountered as an administrator, he was relieved of his directorship in 1800, but remained at

as a designer and artist until 1808. Mélanie de Comoléra was his pupil.Cornelis van Spaendonck
in

RKDimages 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 ...

In 1789 Spaendonck became a member of the

Académie des Beaux Arts An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

. He painted throughout his lifetime, displaying his works in the salons of

until 1833. Most of Spaendonck's works were created with

oils An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturat ...

and

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouach ...

, and he is remembered for his lush

still-life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or human-made (drinking glasses, books, ...

s of flowers. Among his paintings were subjects such as ''De Fleurs Et Fruits'', ''Vase De Fleurs'', ''Bouquet De Different Fleurs'', ''Fleurs Du Jardin'', ''Corbeille Fleurs'', et al. At the time of his death in 1840 there were 29 paintings in his studio, works that were auctioned soon afterwards.

References

Arader Galleries
Still Life of Flowers in an Urn 1756 births 1839 deaths People from Tilburg Painters from North Brabant 19th-century Dutch painters Dutch male painters Dutch flower artists 18th-century Dutch painters 18th-century Dutch male artists 19th-century Dutch male artists {{Netherlands-painter-stub