MOREL, Jean-Baptiste
Flemish painter. He studied c. 1674 under the Antwerp still-life painter Nicolaes van Verendael (1640-1691) who specialized in flower pieces and garlands. He was successful as a painter in Antwerp but moved to Brussels after 1695 to respond to the significant demand for his work there. He became a member of the Brussels Guild of Saint Luke in 1699. He obtained commissions from the governor of the Southern Netherlands whose palaces in Brussels he decorated.
He returned to Antwerp in 1710 as a wealthy man. He had problems with the local Guild of Saint Luke as he refused to join it. The Guild went so far as to seize works that he had exhibited. He then moved back to Brussels in 1729 and rejoined the Guild there.
He married twice, first in 1689 with Marie Lamboy and a second time with Anne- Marie van Heymissen, who came from an aristocratic family of Brussels.
Like his master, Morel was a still-life painter specialized in flower pieces and garlands. His works are in the collections of the museums in Chartres and Lille and in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne.
