Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os

Flower painting was the family trade. Georgius van Os was born in The Hague in 1782, the son of Jan van Os, one of the leading Dutch flower painters of his generation, and of Susanna de la Croix, who also painted. His brother Pieter and his sister Maria Margaretha became painters as well, and Georgius learned in his father's studio.

In 1809 he won first prize at Felix Meritis, the Amsterdam society for the arts and sciences, with a still life, and he kept to still life from then on. In the 1810s he worked in Amsterdam, setting bouquets and game on marble plinths beside Greek vases and antique reliefs, in the classical taste of the time. In the 1820s he moved to Paris, where he painted flowers on porcelain for the Sèvres manufactory, the royal French porcelain works, while still selling oils to Dutch and French clients. From the 1830s he spent his summers in Haarlem, drawing plants for Flora Batava, a long-running illustrated survey of the plants of the Netherlands. He died in Paris in 1861.