Cornelis Huysmans

1648 – 1727

Flemish painter. He was the son of a builder, Hendrik Huysmans, and Catharina van der Meyden, and the brother of Jan Baptist Huysmans. After his parents' deaths he was brought up by his uncle, who apprenticed him to the landscape painter Gaspard de Witte (1624-81) or, according to other sources, to Huysman's half-brother Pieter, though there is nothing to support this in the records of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke. He moved to Brussels to train with Jacques d'Arthois, who, on Huysmans's own testimony, was the most important influence on his development as a painter. On 24 January 1682 he married Maria Anna Schepers in Mechelen and in 1688 signed an agreement with the Mechelen painters' guild, which allowed him, upon payment of 24 guilders and 14 stuivers, to practise his trade there. Perhaps some difficulties he experienced with the guild encouraged his move to Antwerp, where he became a master in 1706-07. In 1716 he returned to Mechelen, where he took on Augustus-Casimir Redel and Jean Edmond Turner as pupils. Most of his life was spent in Mechelen. His landscapes, painted with a broad brush, are rich in warm, dark tones; he emulated the colouring of the Venetians. His works may be seen in many important European museums. The Metropolitan Museum has two landscapes.

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