Louis Royer, 1793–1868 (Flemish sculptor)

* During his lifetime Louis Royer (AKA Lodewyk Royer) was the most important sculptor in the Netherlands. He was known as the "Canova of the Netherlands" and later was simply referred to as "the sculptor."

In 1823, Royer was the first sculptor to win the Dutch version of the Dutch Prix de Rome, which allowed him to study in Rome where he came under classicist influences. He gained a lot of admiration for his portrait of Pope Leo XII, whom he portrayed from life.

In 1827, he returned from Rome and settled in The Hague, an important artistic centre after the royal family had moved there from Amsterdam. He was soon appointed court sculptor and he made portraits of all members of the royal family in busts of marble. Shortly afterwards he was also appointed director of the Royal Academy of Art in Amsterdam.

After moving to Amsterdam in 1837, Royer received many public commissions for statues of leading personalities from Dutch history, such as the statues of Rembrandt and Joost van den Vondel in Amsterdam, William the Silent in The Hague and Michiel de Ruyter in Vlissingen.

He died in Amsterdam on 5 June 1868.

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NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: 1 August 1793 NS, 22:00 (10pm) LMT (-0:17:52), Mechelen, Belgium (51n02, 4e28). ASC: 24 Aries. RR: B (from biography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield quotes from Bulletin du Cercle archeologique, litteraire et artistique de Malines, Volume 15 (H. Dessain, 1905), p. 202: "De meest geraadpleegde kunstgeschiedboeken geven een verkeer den geboortedatum van hem op. Hij kwam ter wereld te Mechelen, den 1" Augustus 1793, ten 10 uur des avonds."

Translation: "The most consulted art history books frequently discuss his birth. He was born in Mechelen on the 1st of August 1793 at 10 o'clock in the evening."

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Copyright Sy Scholfield. All rights reserved in all media.

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Jef Geeraerts (Flemish writer)

* Jef Geeraerts writes that he is a Pisces, born "at half past four in the afternoon. My ascendant is the Lion and this is a rare combination."

Jef Geeraerts was a colonial administrator in Belgian Congo. On the independence of the Congo he sent his wife and children back to Belgium and in August 1960 he himself returned to Belgium. During the next six years he was paid by the government (return program). After that time he needed to find a job to survive. He decided to become a writer and went to the University of Brussels to study Germanic languages.

When he had finished his studies he wrote his first novel, Ik ben maar een neger ("I'm just a negro"), which put him on the map as extremely controversial. He wrote more of these politically motivated colonial books before he started his Gangreen series. There are four parts, Gangreen 1 (Black Venus), Gangreen 2 (De Goede Moordenaar), Gangreen 3 (Het Teken van de Hond) and Gangreen 4 (Het Zevende Zegel). Later he became famous for his detective stories. Nowadays he is a celebrated crime-novelist and several of his books (De zaak Alzheimer and Dossier K) have been filmed.

Read more from his Wikipedia biography.

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Photo of Jef Geeraerts and his wife Eleonore Vigenon by Koen Broos.

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HOROSCOPE NOTES

Geeraerts has an interesting mutual reception between Mars and Uranus: "extremely controversial."

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NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Jozef Adriaan Anna Geeraerts, 23 February 1930, 16:30 (4:30 p.m.) GMT (+0), Antwerp, Belgium (51n13, 04e25). ASC: 28 Leo. RR: A (from him in an autobiography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield (c) quotes Egbert Krispyn (ed.), Modern Stories from Holland and Flanders: An Anthology (Twayne, 1973), p. 34: "Pisces: My constellation (Jef Geeraerts). I was in fact born February 23, 1930, at half past four in the afternoon. My ascendant is the Lion and this is a rare combination, as all the handbooks about astrology will tell you." Full name and place of birth from Wikipedia: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jef_Geeraerts.

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Copyright Sy Scholfield. All rights reserved in all media.

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