Christiaan, or Chris as he was known, Snijders was born in Rotterdam in 1881. Largely self-taught, he was to become a highly regarded painter and etcher of landscapes, city scenes and occasionally painting still life subjects in the Dutch tradition. Snijders was greatly influenced by his contemporaries, in particular Isaac Israëls and George Hendrick Breitner.

He travelled extensively in The Netherlands, painting small farms in the Polder landscape, Zeeland, the westernmost province of The Netherlands, and also in the coastal cities of The Hague and his native Rotterdam.

Snijders did, however, travel further afield painting in Bruges and in Biskra, Algeria, although it was in London in the pre-war years that he undoubtedly produced his most significant work, “Ludgate Hill from Fleet Street”. In a departure from the previous decades and the somewhat stilted views of the 19th Century, Snijders conjures up the atmosphere of the thriving metropolis in the early years of the Twentieth Century. He captures the sense of movement and activity also seen in Camille Pissarro's Paris views and those of his followers, he portrays the teeming streets, the thronged omnibuses, the horse and carriages, indeed the bustling air of commerce in a city at the centre of the world, some years before the arrival of his compatriot Isaac Israels in 1913.

Although widely travelled, Snijders was to remain based in his native city of Rotterdam where he died in 1943.