Krieghoff Cornelius David

Born on 19 June 1815: Cornelius David Krieghoff, Dutch Canadian painter who died on 08 (04?) March 1872.
He learnt the rudiments of music and painting from his father and about 1830 attended the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Düsseldorf. He moved to the US in 1835 and enlisted in the US army. In New York he met Louise Gauthier, a French–Canadian, and settled in Montréal with her in 1840, working as a painter and a musician. In 1842–3 he had a studio in Rochester, NY; in the following year he studied in Paris, making copies in the Louvre. Returning to Canada in 1845, he painted portraits in Toronto and from 1845 to 1853 he lived in Longueuil and then in Montreal, where he produced genre paintings, landscapes and portraits.



He exhibited in Montreal and Toronto, and a series of lithographs were published after his drawings. However, he found it difficult to sell his work in Montreal and had to resort more or less completely to sign-painting for a living.
      About 1853, at the instigation of the auctioneer John Budden, Krieghoff settled in Quebec City. He lived there for 11 years, making several trips to Europe. During this period of intensive production, he achieved popularity and prosperity and painted his best-known pictures, which were scenes depicting the local townspeople and the North American Indians, and views of Quebec City and the surrounding region. About 1858 he made panoramic paintings of Canada for the Provincial Parliament buildings in Quebec. From 1864 to 1867 he lived in Paris and Munich, continuing to paint Canadian themes. He then seems to have joined his daughter in Chicago, returning in 1870 to Quebec, where Budden encouraged him to take up painting genre pictures and townscapes once again.