- Gerard van Spaendonck
Gerard van Spaendonck (
22 March 1746 ,Tilburg -11 May 1822 ,Paris ) was a Dutch painter.Gerard was an older brother of
Cornelis van Spaendonck (1756-1840), who was also a renowned artist. In the 1760s he studied with decorative painter Guillaume-Jacques Herreyns (1743-1827) inAntwerp . In 1769 he moved toParis , and in 1774 was appointed miniature painter in the court ofLouis XVI . In 1780 he succeeded Madeleine Françoise Basseporte (1701-1780) as professor of floral painting at theJardin des Plantes , and shortly afterwards was elected a member of theAcadémie des beaux-arts .Gerard van Spaendonck painted with both oil and
watercolors . He contributed over fifty works to the Vélins du Roi, which was a famous collection of botanical watercolors possessed by French royalty. From 1799 to 1801 he published twenty-four plates of his " Fleurs Dessinees d'apres Nature" (Flowers Drawn from Life), which were high-quality engravings for students of floral painting. Today, "Fleurs Dessinees d'apres Nature" is a highly treasured book on floral art.In 1788 Spaendonck was appointed adviser to the Académie, and in 1795 he became a founding member of the
Institut de France . In 1804 he received theLégion d'honneur and soon afterwards was ennobled byNapoleon Bonaparte .References
* [http://www.aradergalleries.com/artist.php?id=251 Arader Galleries, Gerard van Spaendonck Biography]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
