1649-1723 Dutch (Resident in UK) Sir Godfrey Kneller Galleries was the leading portrait painter in England during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and was court painter to British monarchs from Charles II to George I. His major works include The Chinese Convert (1687); a series of four portraits of Isaac Newton painted at various junctures of the latter's life; a series of ten reigning European monarchs, including King Louis XIV of France; over 40 "Kit-cat portraits" of members of the Kit-Cat Club; and ten "beauties" of the court of William III, to match a similar series of ten beauties of the court of Charles II painted by his predecessor as court painter, Sir Peter Lely. Sir John Vanbrugh in Godfrey Kneller's Kit-cat portrait, considered one of Kneller's finest portraits.Kneller was born Gottfried Kniller in L??beck, Germany. Kneller studied in Leiden, but became a pupil of Ferdinand Bol and Rembrandt in Amsterdam. He worked in Rome and Venice in the early 1670s, painting historical subjects and portraits, and later moved to Hamburg. He came to England in 1674, at the invitation of the Duke of Monmouth, accompanied by his brother, John Zacharias Kneller, who was an ornamental painter. He was introduced to, and painted a portrait of, Charles II. In England, Kneller concentrated almost entirely on portraiture. He founded a studio which churned out portraits on an almost industrial scale, relying on a brief sketch of the face with details added to a formulaic model, aided by the fashion for gentlemen to wear full wigs. His portraits set a pattern that was followed until William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds. Nevertheless, he established himself as a leading portrait artist in England. When Sir Peter Lely died in 1680, Kneller was appointed Principal Painter to the Crown by Charles II. In the 1690s, Kneller painted the Hampton Court Beauties depicting the most glamorous ladies-in-waiting of the Royal Court for which he received his knighthood from William III. He produced a series of "Kit-cat" portraits of 48 leading politicians and men of letters, members of the Kit-Cat Club. Created a baronet by King George I, he was also head of the Kneller Academy of Painting and Drawing 1711-1716 in Great Queen Street, London. His paintings were praised by Whig luminaries such as John Dryden, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, and Alexander Pope. Kneller died of fever in 1723 and his remains were interred in Twickenham Church (he was a churchwarden there when the 14th century nave collapsed in 1713 and was involved in the plans for its reconstruction). The site of the house he built in 1709 in Whitton near Twickenham is now occupied by the mid-19th century Kneller Hall, home of the Royal Military School of Music   Related Paintings of Sir Godfrey Kneller :. | John Locke | Portrait of Joseph Addison | Queen Anne | Duchess of Dorset | Portrait of William Legge |
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Cornelius Varley
English Painter, 1781-1873 Painter, draughtsman and printmaker, brother of (1) John Varley. Primarily a scientist, he painted watercolours for pleasure. He was less prolific than his brother. Although he was also a founder-member of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, he exhibited few watercolours there from 1805 to 1820 and even fewer at the Royal Academy and the Society of British Artists between 1820 and 1859 and 1826 and 1844
Pieter de Molijn
(6 April 1595 - 23 March 1661) was a Dutch Golden Age painter and engraver born in England. He was baptized in the Dutch Reformed Austin Friars church in London. Little is known of his early training, but he probably traveled to Italy and in 1616 he became a member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke. He was a contemporary of Jacob Pinas. He married Geertuyt Huygen de Bie. During the years 1616-1627 he lived in Delft where he remarried after his first wife died. In the marriage notice, his wife Geertruyt de Roovere is from Amsterdam and he is from Delft. De Molijn was possibly a student of Esaias van de Velde. He taught several students, including Gerard ter Borch, Jan Coelenbier, Allart van Everdingen, Christian de Hulst, Anthony Molijn, Jan Nose and Jan Wils.De Molijn was known for his landscapes, but he also made genre pieces, marine scenes, portraits, and architectural pieces. This type of oeuvre is typical for the Italian-bound artists of his day, who paid their way as a jack-of-all-trades. De Molijn died in Haarlem on 23 March 1661.
Roelant Savery
Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, 1576-1639 . was a Flanders-born Dutch baroque painter of the Golden Age. Like so many other artists, Savery's Anabaptist family fled North from the Spanish occupied Southern Netherlands when Roelant was about 4 years old and settled in Haarlem around 1585. He was taught painting by his older brother Jacob Savery (c.1565-1603) and Hans Bol. After his schooling, Savery traveled to Prague around 1604, where he became court painter of the Emperors Rudolf II (1552-1612) and Mathias (1557-1619), who had made their court a center of mannerist art. Between 1606-1608 he traveled to Tyrol to study plants. Gillis d'Hondecoeter became his pupil.[3] Before 1616 Savery moved back to Amsterdam, and lived in the Sint Antoniesbreestraat. In 1618 he settled in Utrecht, where he joined the artist's guild a year later. His nephew Hans would become his most important assistant. In 1621 Savery bought a large house on the Boterstraat in Utrecht. The house had a large garden with flowers and plants, where a number of fellow painters, like Adam Willaerts were frequent visitors. Savery had kept his house in Amsterdam, and had one child baptized in Nieuwe Kerk (Amsterdam).[4] Savery was friends with still life painters like Balthasar van der Ast and Ambrosius Bosschaert. In the 1620s he was one of the most successful painters in Utrecht, but later his life got troubled, perhaps because of heavy drinking. Though he would have pupils until the late 1630s