Eelke Jelles Eelkema (8 July 1788 – 27 November 1839), a painter of landscapes, flowers, and fruit, was born at Leeuwarden as the son of a merchant. On account of his deafness, which was brought on by an illness at the age of seven, he was educated in the first Dutch institution for the deaf and dumb at Groningen (1799). The Flemish Gerardus de San, first director of the Academie Minerva, instructed Eelkema in the art of drawing. * Flowers in a Terracotta Vase (c. 1810–1824) started by Albertus Jonas Brandt and finished by Eelkema after Brandt's death in 1821 * * *