Gerard van Spaendonck: A Life in Bloom Early Life and Education Born: 1746 in Tilburg, Netherlands. Van Spaendonck came from an artistic family; his younger brother, Cornelis van Spaendonck, also became a successful painter. In the 1760s, he began his formal training with decorative painter Willem Jacob Herreyns (also known as Guillaume-Jacques Herreyns) in Antwerp. This early exposure shaped his meticulous attention to detail…