Brief aan P. Collard Possibly 1813 - 1819

This letter was penned by Cornelis van Spaendonck in Paris in 1813. We can see this document not just as a personal correspondence, but as a snapshot of institutional and social networks operating at the time. Letters like this, now preserved, provide a window into the artistic and social circles of early 19th-century France. Van Spaendonck, as a prominent painter, would have been enmeshed in a network of patrons, fellow artists, and institutions like the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. The letter's contents, though cryptic to us now, likely refer to appointments, commissions, or other forms of patronage. To fully understand this letter, we need to dig into archives – tracing the recipient, P. Collard, and deciphering the references to "nomination" and other coded language. This kind of research allows us to reconstruct the web of relationships that sustained artistic production and to understand the social conditions that shaped the art of the period.