Adèle Kindt

Part of Kindt's Épisode des journées de septembre 1830.

Adèle Kindt (16 December 1804–1884) was a Belgian painter, the leading female painter of the 1820s to 1840s.

Born in Brussels into a family that produced many female artists, Marie-Adélaïde Kindt was trained in drawing by engraver Antoine Cardon. She studied painting under François-Joseph Navez and was encouraged by Jacques-Louis David.

Although trained as a neoclassicist, Kindt produced work informed by Romanticism. Her early works included many historical scenes. Her Épisode des journées de septembre 1830, portraying a scene from the Belgian Revolution of 1830, is considered her masterpiece and is on display in the Brussels city museum on the Grand Place.

After the 1840s, Kindt painted much less ambitious works, largely portraiture and generic scenes. Although she adapted her style to suit the changing tastes of the public, she never recaptured the success of her early career. She died in Schaarbeek.

Her younger sisters Clara and Laurence were landscape painters, as was her sister-in-law Isabelle Kindt-Van Assche.

References

• Creusen, Alexia, "KINDT, Marie-Adélaïde, dite Adèle" in E. Gubin, C. Jacques, V. Piette & J. Puissant (eds), Dictionnaire des femmes belges: XIX^e et XX^e siècles. Bruxelles: Éditions Racine, 2006. ISBN 2-87386-434-6