Gerard van Spaendonck

Gerard van Spaendonck studied at Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Training under Willem Jacob Herreyns is recorded. Charlotte Eustace Sophie de Fuligny-Damas and Mélanie de Comoléra are recorded as having studied under Gerard van Spaendonck. The recorded working language is French. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are floral. Places of work recorded in the authority are Antwerp, Breda and Paris. Work by Gerard van Spaendonck is recorded in the collections of Minneapolis Institute of Art, Nationalmuseum, National Gallery of Canada, The Frick Collection and Rijksmuseum. Distinctions recorded are Knight of the Legion of Honour.

• Name — Gerard van Spaendonck • Born — 22 March 1746 • Birthplace — Tilburg, Netherlands • Died — 11 May 1822 • Place of death — Paris, France • Resting Place — Père Lachaise Cemetery • Movement — Institut de France • Awards — Légion d'honneur

Gerard was born in Tilburg, an older brother of Cornelis van Spaendonck (1756–1840), who was also an accomplished artist. In the 1760s he studied with decorative painter Willem Jacob Herreyns (also known as Guillaume-Jacques Herreyns) (1743–1827) in Antwerp. In 1769 he moved to Paris, where in 1774 he was appointed miniature painter in the court of Louis XVI. In 1780 he succeeded Madeleine Françoise Basseporte (1701–1780) as professor of floral painting at the Jardin des Plantes, and shortly afterwards was elected as a member of the Académie des beaux-arts. Among his pupils were Pierre-Joseph Redouté and Henriette Vincent. Gerard van Spaendonck painted with both oil and watercolors. He contributed over fifty works to Les Vélins du Roi, a famous collection of botanical watercolors possessed by French royalty. From 1799 to 1801 he published twenty-four plates of Fleurs Dessinees d'apres Nature (Flowers Drawn from Life), which were high-quality engravings for students of floral painting. Today, Spaendonck's Fleurs Dessinées d'après Nature is a highly treasured book on floral art. In 1788 he was appointed adviser to the Académie, and in 1795 became a founding member of the Institut de France. In 1804 he received the Légion d'honneur and soon afterwards was ennobled by Napoleon Bonaparte. Spaendonck died in Paris in 1822 and is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

• Illustration — Bouquet of tulips, roses and an opium poppies, with a pale clouded yellow butterfly, a red longhorn beetle and a sevenspotted ladybug • Illustration — Still life of flowers in a basket with two butterflies, a dragonfly, a fly and a beetle near an alabaster urn on a marble pedestal • Illustration — Jacinthe double. • Illustration — Tulipe des jardins.

Gerard van Spaendonck is recorded as botanical illustrator, painter, naturalist and botanist.