Cornelia Cnoop
Active in: Southern Netherlands
Alternate names: Cornelia Cnopp, Cornelia David
Biography
Little is known about Cornelia Cnoop, the wife of the painter Gerard David (1460–1523). Her parents were the goldsmith Jacob Cnoop de Jongere and his wife Kathelijne uter Vorst. The date of her birth is uncertain, although she was likely younger than her husband, who was born in 1460. They married in 1497 and had a daughter, Barbara. The center panel of a triptych, Virgin and Child, Saints Catherine and Barbara, now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, was attributed to her at an exhibition held in Bruges in 1902. The triptych is now attributed to Simon Bening and no other works by Cnoop have been identified. She is depicted as the woman in the white cornet in the right of David’s The Virgin Among the Virgins, which he painted in 1509 and is now part of the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen, France.
Selected Works
Formerly attributed to Cornelia Cnoop, Virgin and Child, ca. 1520. Oil on canvas, 23.7 × 18 cm [central panel of larger triptych]. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Circle
Wife of
painter Gerard David (1460-1523)
Bibliography
A Checklist of Painters ca. 1200–1976 Represented in the Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, London. London: Mansell, 1978.
Greer, Germaine. The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1979.
Huet, L., and J. Grieten. Oude meesteressen: vrouwelijke kunstenaars in de Nederlanden. Leuven: Van Halewijck, 1998.
Thieme, Ulrich, and Felix Becker. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Leipzig: Seemann, 1908.
Van der Stighelen, K., and S. van Cauwenberge. “Lijst van Zuid-Nederlandse kunstenaressen, circa 1500–1800.” In Vrouwen en kunst in de Republiek, een overzicht, edited by C. Peters-Sengers and E. Tobé, 177–80. Hilverseum, 1998.