Background
Pieter van Hanselaere was born on July 30, 1786 in Ghent, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium.
Pieter van Hanselaere was born on July 30, 1786 in Ghent, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium.
Pieter studied at the Academy of Ghent with Pierre Van Huffel, and then in Paris at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1809.
After finishing his studying in 1814, Pieter was back in Ghent and competed for the prize in historical painting. Winning that prize gave him enough funds to travel to Italy. In his early days he specialized in creating portraits and achieved a high level of technical perfection. Because of the Napoleonic wars he was not able to leave for Italy until 1816. When he finally did, Pieter first stayed in Rome and painted portraits of some high-ranking officials, before moving to Naples and achieving success there as well, becoming the painter for the royal court. In 1828 he returned to Ghent, where a post as professor had opened up, and competed with two others for the position. His painting "Suzanna and the elders" was one of his contributions, and he was offered the position in 1829.
At the Academy of Ghent Cornelis Kimmel and Pierre Olivier Joseph Coomans were among his pupils. The artist exhibited in many cities and had amassed a sufficient fortune that allowed him to buy three houses in the Rue Courte du Marais. By 1844 he had finished his pièce capitale, a 24 by 16 foot painting depicting Philip van Artevelde and his army leaving Ghent to fight Louis II, Count of Flanders. Critical response of the large and confused piece was negative, and van Hanselaere never fully recuperated from the disappointment. The death of his only son hastened him towards his own death on March 10, 1862. His work was in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam since 1890.
Pieter van Hanselaere is known to have had a son but there is no information about his wife.