OS, Georgius van

Painter, part of a Dutch family of artists. The dynasty was founded by Jan van Os and included his sons Pieter Gerardus van Os, painter and etcher, and Georgius van Os, painter, his daughter, the fruit and flower painter Maria Margaretha van Os (1780-1862), and his grandson, the painter of landscapes with horses and cattle Pieter Frederik van Os (1808-1892).

Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os studied with his father and, like him, preferred to paint flower and fruit pieces, although he never neglected the landscape genre. His first important works were the detailed drawings of flowers and plants that were used to illustrate Jan Kops’s Flora Batava (1800-22). In 1809 he won the first prize of the Felix Meritis Society in Amsterdam with a watercolour still-life, after which he devoted himself to the painting of still-lifes. His regular contributions, from 1810 onwards, of flower, fruit and hunting pieces to the Dutch exhibitions were invariably well received; in 1812 he was also awarded a gold medal at the Salon in Paris, where he was employed at the Sèvres porcelain factory. Except for a stay in The Hague in 1813, van Os remained in France until 1816, after which he moved between Amsterdam and The Hague until settling definitively in Paris in 1822. He continued to work for the Sèvres factory, although he also regularly spent considerable periods of time in Haarlem.