Petrus van Schendelartist • painterTerheijden 1806-1870 Brussel

The Belgian-Dutch painter Petrus van Schendel achieved great fame for his moonlit landscapes and nightly markets in which candlelight and open fire formed the source of light. The genre responded to the romantic collector's fascination with the darkness and mysterious forces of nature. He also painted landscapes, seascapes, interiors, portraits and religious history paintings, almost all with light effects. The painter's candlelight scenes were so admired that he was called 'Monsieur Chandelle' in France.
Van Schendel's drawing talent was recognized early on and his family sent him to the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp where he took lessons from 1822 to 1828. After his return from Belgium in 1828, he alternated between Breda, his hometown, and Amsterdam, where he settled permanently in 1830. In 1838 the family – Van Schendel now had a wife and children – moved to The Hague. There, Van Schendel was mainly concerned with creating a market for his paintings, which he found at the Hague art dealer Johannes Immerzeel.
As early as 1828, Van Schendel painted moonlit marines, ice scenes and genre scenes by candlelight, the genre he would continue to practice throughout his life. Nocturnes or paintings with moonlight and candlelight were a seventeenth-century genre that flourished again in the nineteenth century. If the performance takes place outside and the moon and stars served as a natural light source, nocturnes were also referred to as 'moonshine'. 'Candlelights', on the other hand, usually took place indoors. Van Schendel painted countless market and street scenes at night and his productivity was great. His nocturnal market scenes were particularly admired, the first examples of which were created between 1838 and 1845 when the artist lived on the Prinsengracht in The Hague, not far from the Groenmarket. Even after the family moved permanently to Brussels in 1845, Van Schendel continued to paint the Groenmarket in order to meet the great demand from the buyers. The velvety tone of these performances and the way in which the soft light of candle and oil lamp touched the faces of market people and visitors were praised. Remarkably often, the artist adorned vegetable sellers and other market women with the characteristic headgear of the Scheveningen fisherwoman, which he found particularly decorative. Van Schendel's studio in Brussels had two rooms; a brightly lit room for his actual painting and a room that he could darken and illuminate with candles, oil lamps or torches. His models posed in the latter.
Commercially, Van Schendel was a very successful artist and a typical example of a romantic genre painter who deliberately reduced his choice of motifs to one type for commercial reasons: the light effect scene with chiaroscuro. He knew how to sell his work very well. That was necessary, because he had 15 children from two of his three marriages to raise. In addition to him, Johannes Rosierse, Petrus Kiers, Andreas Vermeulen and Jan Hendrik Grootvelt were also important representatives of the nocturne.
Van Schendel participated in many exhibitions in the Netherlands, but also in Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Paris, London and Manchester. He received both silver and gold medals. His paintings were included in important European collections, such as those of King Willem II and King Leopold I of Belgium. But as time passed and his – the same – work was often shown at exhibitions, other sounds could be heard. There was still appreciation for the quality of his work, but there was also a need for innovation and other sources of inspiration. Appreciation for Van Schendel remained, but the candle and lamplight genre went out of fashion in the late 19th century and Van Schendel was considered old-fashioned by critics. But the interest of the general public remained unchanged and his work continued to sell well long after his death. In addition to being a celebrated painter, Van Schendel was also a skilled mechanic and inventor.