Melchior d'Hondecoeter was born in 1636 in Utrecht, Netherlands. His father Gijsbert d'Hondecoeter, his grandfather Gillis d'Hondecoeter, and his aunt's husband Jan Baptist Weenix were painters of animals and still lifes. Melchior had also a cousin Jan Weenix, who was also a painter.
After studying with his father, Hondecoeter was a student of Jan Baptist Weenix.
Hondecoeter began his career with a different speciality from that by which he is usually known. He painted sea-pieces. One of his earliest works was "Tub with Fish", dated 1655, in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum. Hondecoeter soon abandoned fish for fowl and became famous as a painter of birds.
In 1659, he was working in The Hague and lived there until he moved to Amsterdam in 1663.
Very few of his pictures are dated, around twenty of them, though more are signed. Notable were "Jackdaw deprived of his Borrowed Plumes" (1671) at the Mauritshuis in The Hague and "A Spaniel hunting a Partridge" (1672) in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Hondecoeter also painted wall hangings with views of buildings and parks.
According to the Netherlands Institute for Art History, his registered pupils were Willem Hendrik Wilhelmus van Royen and Jan Weenix.
Melchior d'Hondecoeter died on April 3, 1695 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Hondecoeter was especially renowned for his pictures of birds fighting and in flight, such as "The Fight Between a Cock and a Turkey". His masterpieces are at The Hague, Soestdijk and at Amsterdam (The Floating Feather), but there are fine examples in the Wallace Collection and Belton House in England, and in the public galleries of Berlin, Budapest, Caen, Cologne, Copenhagen, Detroit, Dresden, Dublin, Florence, Glasgow, Hanover and other cities.
Birds in a Park
Domestic fowl with a pheasant and peacocks
La poule blanche
Birds in a Park
A Pelican and Other Birds Near a Pool (The Floating Feather)
Still life with animals
Swans and peacocks
Birds and a Spaniel in a Garden
The poultry yard
View of a Terrace
An Eagle, a Cockerell, Hens, a Pigeon in Flight and Other Birds
The Menagerie
Peacocks and Ducks
Still life with the hunting trophy
Melchior d'Hondecoeter became a member of Confrerie Pictura, the painters' academy of The Hague.
In 1663, Hondecoeter married Susanne Tradel from Amsterdam. She lived on the Lauriergracht; being aged thirty, she was three years older. The couple had two children, baptized in 1666 and 1668. In 1692, his wife died. Hondecoeter lived in the house of his daughter Isabel in the Warmoesstraat.
He was the son of Jan Baptist Weenix.
Jan Weenix was married to Melchior's aunt Josina.
