Melchior de Hondecoeter

The menagerie (around 1690). A colorful mixture of Asian ( Alexandrine parakeet , blue-crowned hanging parrot - in typical posture -, Frauenlori ? Rainbow Lorikeet ) and African ( African gray parrot , gray head ) parrots, including two yellow-crested cockatoo . In the background above a European bullfinch and a North American red cardinal .

Chicken Farm (1686)

Melchior de Hondecoeter , also Melchior d'Hondecoeter (* 1636 in Utrecht , † April 3, 1695 in Amsterdam ) was a Dutch animal painter .

Live and act

Melchior de Hondecoeter comes from the Dutch painters family Hondecoeter, was a student of his father Gijsbert Gillisz. de Hondecoeter (master in the painters' guild in Utrecht) and his uncle Jan Baptist Weenix . His grandfather, Gillis Claesz, too. de Hondecoeter and his cousin Jan Weenix were painters.

He stayed in The Hague around 1659–1663 , where he became a member and chairman of the painters' guild. Then he settled in Amsterdam , where he married Susanna Tradel in 1663.

Hondecoeter painted hunting still lifes as well as compilations of native and exotic birds. Among the topics are e.g. B. hen yards with fighting roosters or ducks by the water.

The format of the pictures is very different and ranges from small paintings to large wall coverings.

Although Hondecoeter signed almost all of his works, only a very small number of his pictures are also dated. This fact makes a chronological order of the complete works problematic and almost impossible. Furthermore it can be proven that on animal pictures of contemporaries, z. B. by Jacobus Victors (1640–1705), the original signatures were replaced by those of the better-known Hondecoeter.

The representations are characterized by great detail realism. It is considered certain that Hondecoeter painted the birds from nature. He could see the exotic birds in the zoos (so-called menageries) of his clients and sponsors.

His most famous painting is the painting known as The Swimming Feather , which shows a pond with water birds - including a large pelican in the foreground. This picture is in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam , together with other pictures by Hondecoeter.

literature

Abraham Bredius (ed.): Artist inventories. Documents on the history of Dutch art in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries . 8 volumes. Nijhoff, 's-Gravenhage 1915–1922, ( source studies on Dutch art history 5, 6, 7, 10–14, ZDB -ID 515345-1 ).
Joseph Eduard Wessely : Hondekoeter, Melchior . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, p. 67 f.

Web links

Commons : Melchior d'Hondecoeter - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Works by Melchior de Hondecoeter at Zeno.org .

Remarks

↑ The lower cockatoo also shows a typical posture, which is evidence that the artist had a living cockatoo as a model. The cockatoo sitting on the rim of the vessel is painted with an anklet; this was used to tie a parrot when it was kept on a parrot stand.
↑ Neotropical parrots are absent; some, such as macaws or amazons , were already known in Europe at this time and were also found more often on paintings.

personal data
SURNAME	Hondecoeter, Melchior de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Hondecoeter, Melchior d '
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Dutch painter and etcher
DATE OF BIRTH	1636
PLACE OF BIRTH	Utrecht
DATE OF DEATH	April 3, 1695
Place of death	Amsterdam

[1] The lower cockatoo also shows a typical posture, which is evidence that the artist had a living cockatoo as a model. The cockatoo sitting on the rim of the vessel is painted with an anklet; this was used to tie a parrot when it was kept on a parrot stand.

[2] Neotropical parrots are absent; some, such as macaws or amazons , were already known in Europe at this time and were also found more often on paintings.