(b Antwerp, 27 May 1764; d Paris, 20 March 1840). Flemish painter and lithographer. He first studied architecture at the Antwerp Academie from 1776, despite his early preference for painting, and in 1786 he settled in Paris as a decorator. In 1793 he acquired lodgings in the Louvre next to fellow countrymen Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Piat-Joseph Sauvage (1744–1818) and Gerard van Spaendonck; under the influence of Spaendonck he turned to flower painting, in which he specialized for the rest of his life. He was prolific in his output and successful in securing commissions from such wealthy and influential patrons as the Empresses Josephine and Marie-Louise Bonaparte (1791–1847), and both Louis XVIII and Charles X. From 1793 until 1833 he exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon and, after 1807, occasionally in the Low Countries. Van Dael remained faithful to the Flemish tradition of flower painting exemplified by Roelandt Savery, with sober composition and attention to detail (e.g. Roses and Butterflies, 1802; Lille, Mus. B.-A.). But he also brought to many of his flower arrangements a French-inspired decorative monumentality. In some of his ornamental fruit and flower arrangements a landscape background is sketched in, and a few pure landscapes have survived, including The Painter’s House (1822; Rotterdam, Boymans–van Beuningen). He painted a small number of religious and allegorical pictures; one of his most celebrated, Julie’s Tomb (1804; Malmaison, Château N.), can be read as a reflection on life and death. He also painted occasional portraits, usually of other artists (e.g. Robert Lefèvre, 1804; Antwerp, Kon. Mus. S. Kst.), and made lithographs (e.g. portrait of Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse, 1829).

• Dael, Jean-François van
  • Bonaparte: (2) Josephine
  • Flower painting, §2(iii): 18th–20th centuries
  • Still-life, §3: 18th century and after