CASTEELS, Pieter

Flemish painter. He belonged to a family of painters who specialized in birds and flowers. He was the pupil of his father, also Pieter, and from him learned the elements of still-life painting which were his hallmark. He was the brother-in-law of the sporting painter Pieter Tillemans, whom he accompanied to London. He was successful, and by 1711 was the Director of the new Kneller Academy in London.

Apart from a brief return to Antwerp in 1713, he passed the rest of his career in London, where he painted numerous still-lifes of flowers, birds and animals. As an engraver he has more merit than as a painter. In 1726 he published a set of twelve plates of birds and fowls etched from his own designs; and, besides these, executed some other plates from his own pictures.

After 1735, he retired from painting pictures, and concentrated on producing designs for a calico manufactory. He died in Richmond in 1749.