Balthasar-Paul Ommeganck

Balthasar Paul Ommeganck (sometimes also: Paul Balthasar Ommeganck) (1755–1826) was a Flemish painter of landscapes and animals active in Antwerp. Through his work and his role as an art teacher and founder of art institutions he gave an important impetus to the revitalization of landscape painting in the Low Countries.

Life He was born in Antwerp in 1755 as the fourth child of Paulus Ommeganck and Barbara Laenen. He was registered in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as a pupil of the respected painter Hendricus Josephus Antonissen from 1767. At the same time he also attended classes at the Antwerp Academy where he obtained a second prize for drawing after the Antique in March 1771. He specialized in landscapes and the rendering of the coat of animals in particular of sheep.

On 26 June 1781 he married Petronilla Isabella Maria Jacoba Parrin in Antwerp. They had two sons and seven daughters, one of which was the animal painter Johanna Maria Ommeganck.

He was one of the founders in 1788 of a society of artists known as the Konstmaatschappij (the 'Art Society'). Other founders included Hendrik Frans de Cort, Pieter Faes, Jan Frans Josef Mertens, Willem Schaeken, Antoon Herry, Jan Josef Horemans the Younger, Bartholomeus Jan van Hulst, Jan Baptist Beguinet, Hendrik Aarnout Myin, Hendrik Blomaert, Frans Balthasar Solvyns, Ignatius Jozef van den Berghe, Godfried Frans Bex and the art lover A. Renodi. The first exhibition of the society was held in Antwerp in 1789. Ommeganck contributed 4 works to this first exhibition. Artists who would later join included Mattheus Ignatius van Bree, Maria Jacoba Ommeganck, Marten Waefelaerts and many others.

His students included Jan Baptiste de Jonghe, Frédéric Théodore Faber, Pieter Martinus Gregoor, Jacob van Kouwenhoven, Hendrik Aarnout Myin, Ignatius Josephus van Regemorter, Adrianus de Visser, Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven, Julien-Joseph Ducorron and his sister Maria Jacoba Ommeganck. Ommeganck's style was widely followed in the 18th and early 19th century.

He also made a few portraits such as that of the Painter Jean-Baptiste Berré (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp).

He was a skilled draughtsman and also worked as a sculptor producing some clay models of sheep and cows.