Melchior, a Dutch painter, born at Utrecht, who excelled in painting animals, and especially birds. His father and grandfather were of the same profession, and their subjects the same. He was trained to the art by his father; but surpassed him, and even the best of his contemporaries. Till he was seventeen years of age he continued under the direction of his father, and accustomed himself to paint different sorts of birds; but he took particular pleasure in representing cocks, hens, ducks, chickens, and peacocks, which he described in an elegant variety of actions and attitudes. After his father's death, which happened in 1653, he received some instructions from his uncle John Baptist Weeninx; but his principal and best instructor was nature, which he studied with intense application. His pencil was neat and delicate; his touch light; his colouring natural, lively, and transparent; and the feathers of his fowls were expressed with a swelling softness, which might have readily and agreeably deceived the eye of any spectator. It is reported that he had trained up a cock to stand in any attitude he wanted to describe, and that it was his custom to place that creature near his easel, so that at the motion of his hand the bird would fix itself in the proper posture, and would continue in that particular position without the smallest perceptible alteration for several hours at a time. The landscapes which he introduces as the backgrounds of his pictures are adapted with peculiar judgment and skill, and admirably finished; they harmonize with his subject, and always increase the force and the beauty of his principal objects. He was very happy in imitating the natural plumage of the fowls he painted; which not only produced a charming effect, but may also assist an intelligent observer in determining which are the genuine works of this master, and which the impositions. He died at Utrecht in 1695, aged fifty-nine.