Cornelis Ploos van Amstel

Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726–1798) was an eighteenth-century Dutch painter and art collector.

Biography Etching with colored pencil by Ploos van Amstel, after Adriaen van Ostade, ca. 1765–1782, collection Teylers Museum He was born in Weesp. According to the RKD, he was a pupil of Norbert van Bloemen and Jacobus Buys, and later became a member of the Amsterdam artist society Arte et Amicitia (De Kunstkrans). He is mostly known as a collector and copyist of 17th-century artists. His pupils were Christina Chalon, William V, Prince of Orange, Elisabeth van Woensel, and Hermanus Petrus Schouten.

Works He was not only a patron of the arts, he was also active as a teacher and writer of instructional materials. He attended lectures at the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam and wrote the original report of the lectures of Petrus Camper on the facial angle. Together with Reinier Vinkeles, Jacob Houbraken, Jan de Beijer, and Caspar Jacobsz Philips, he illustrated a new atlas of Amsterdam. Together with Jacob van der Schley, he made a catalog of the art in the Amsterdam City Hall, with short biographical sketches of all the artists involved.

He invented a copying technique that could accurately reproduce images made by pencil, chalk or watercolour washes. Ploos identified these copies by a small stamp of his family coat of arms on the back of each print.