Christiaan van Pol

1752 – 1813

Dutch painter. He probably learned to draw in the tavern there known as the Dorstige Kuil, where the artists from the Amsterdamse Tekenacademie would meet during the summer months. He first trained in Antwerp where he learned decorative painting. Here he met Cornelis van Spaendonck and through him, Gerard van Spaendonck and Jan Frans van Dael. He then travelled with them to Paris in 1782 where he at first spent time making decorative arabesques and painting flower arrangements in miniature on snuffbox lids. He became a good friend of Van Dael, to whom he stayed close to the rest of his life. Along with Jan Frans van Dael, Cornelis van Spaendonck, and Gerard van Spaendonck, van Pol worked in a classic painting style that prized the intense observation of nature and near microscopic rendering of material surfaces, all combined with a bright and vivacious palette. Van Pol collaborated with van Dael on a series of decorative projects for the châteaux in Bellevue, Chantilly and St. Cloud, though his easel canvases from the late 18th and early 19th centuries are his best known artistic accomplishments. He also made designs for the Gobelins Manufactory. He spent the last years of his life teaching.

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