Background
He was born to Hendrick Huysmans (bouwmeester) and Catharina van der Meyden, in a family of artists.
He was born to Hendrick Huysmans (bouwmeester) and Catharina van der Meyden, in a family of artists.
Cornelis the elder, an uncle, apprenticed in 1633, passed for a mastership in 1636, and remained obscure. Jacob Huysmans, an uncle, apprenticed to Frans Wouters in 1650, wandered to England towards the close of the reign of Charles II, and competed with Sir Peter Lely as a fashionable portrait painter.
He was the brother of January-Baptist Huysmans (1654–1716). Huysmans was the name of four Flemish painters who matriculated in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in the 17th century. He executed a portrait of the queen, Catherine of Braganza, now in the National Portrait Gallery (London).
He registered numerous apprentices at Antwerp, and painted a landscape dated 1697 now in the Brussels museum.
Cornelis studied in Antwerp under the landscape painter Gaspar de Witte. Later, he worked with Jacques d"Arthois in Brussels, and in 1674 with Adam Frans van der Meulen in Maastricht.
He painted woodside views with fancy backgrounds, half Italian, half Flemish, and he painted with great facility, and left numerous examples behind. In 1706 he withdrew to Antwerp, where he resided till 1717, returning then to Malines, where he died.
Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke.