Pieter Snyers
Dutch, 1681 - 1752
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Pieter Snyers or Peter Snijers was a Flemish art collector, painter, draughtsman and engraver. He practised a wide variety of genres, including portraits, genre painting, still life and landscape painting. His masterpiece is a series of 12 paintings, each representing a different month of the year.
Pieter Snyers was born in Antwerp as the son of well-off merchant Peter and his wife Anna de Decker. He studied under Alexander van Bredael in 1694. He was registered as a master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1707.
He is reported to have resided in London in the period from 1720 to 1726, where he painted portraits of various members of the nobility and clergymen. The artist who principally painted portraits of priests or monks, led such a calm and pious lifestyle that he was given the nickname De Heilige or The Holy One. He married Maria Catharina van der Boven, the daughter of a lawyer, in 1726. This marriage produced no issue. He was successful as an artist, and able to buy a house on the prestigious Meir in Antwerp and assemble a large collection of Flemish and Dutch masters there.
He entered on 17 August 1741 into an agreement with five other artists to provide free tuition as the directors of the Antwerp Academy. The Academy would eventually replace the Guild of Saint Luke.
Snyers died in Antwerp. His estate included a large collection of art works of major artists of the preceding century showing that he was well-off. His nephew and pupil Pieter Jan Snyers was heir to his considerable fortune.
Snyers was the teacher of his nephew Pieter Jan Snyers and Jacob Xavier Vermoelen.