Melchior d'Hondecoeter. Melchior d'Hondecoeter, Dutch animalier painter, was born in Utrecht and died in Amsterdam.
After the start of his career, he painted virtually exclusively bird subjects, usually exotic or game, in park-like landscapes. Hondecoeter's paintings featured geese, fieldfares, partridges, pigeons, ducks, northern cardinal, magpies and peacocks, but also African grey crowned cranes, Asian sarus cranes, Indonesian yellow-crested cockatoos, an Indonesian purple-naped lory and grey-headed lovebirds from Madagascar.
Being the grandson of the painter Gillis d'Hondecoeter and the son of Gijsbert d'Hondecoeter, whose sister Josina married Jan Baptist Weenix, he was brought up in an artistic milieu. Melchior's cousin Jan Weenix told Arnold Houbraken that in his youth Melchior was extremely religious, praying very loud, so that his mother and uncle doubted whether they would have him trained as a painter or a minister.
In 1659, he was working in The Hague and became a member of Confrerie Pictura, the painters' academy of that town. In 1663, Hondecoeter married Susanne Tradel from Amsterdam.
She lived on the Lauriergracht, and was thirty when they married. The couple had two children, baptized in 1666 and 1668. She is said to have been captious, and had her sisters living in the house. According to Houbraken, Hondecoeter spent much time in his garden or drinking in the tavern in the Jordaan. On
After the start of his career, he painted virtually exclusively bird subjects, usually exotic or game, in park-like landscapes. Hondecoeter's paintings featured geese, fieldfares, partridges, pigeons, ducks, northern cardinal, magpies and peacocks, but also African grey crowned cranes, Asian sarus cranes, Indonesian yellow-crested cockatoos, an Indonesian purple-naped lory and grey-headed lovebirds from Madagascar.
Being the grandson of the painter Gillis d'Hondecoeter and the son of Gijsbert d'Hondecoeter, whose sister Josina married Jan Baptist Weenix, he was brought up in an artistic milieu. Melchior's cousin Jan Weenix told Arnold Houbraken that in his youth Melchior was extremely religious, praying very loud, so that his mother and uncle doubted whether they would have him trained as a painter or a minister.
In 1659, he was working in The Hague and became a member of Confrerie Pictura, the painters' academy of that town. In 1663, Hondecoeter married Susanne Tradel from Amsterdam.
She lived on the Lauriergracht, and was thirty when they married. The couple had two children, baptized in 1666 and 1668. She is said to have been captious, and had her sisters living in the house. According to Houbraken, Hondecoeter spent much time in his garden or drinking in the tavern in the Jordaan. On
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