1610-1646 English William Dobson Locations William Dobson (March 4, 1610 ?C October 28, 1646) was a portraitist and one of the first notable English painters, praised by his contemporary John Aubrey as the most excellent painter that England has yet bred. Dobson was born in London the son of a decorative artist, and was apprenticed to William Peake and probably later joined the studio of Francis Cleyn. He is believed to have had access to the Royal Collection and to have copied works by Titian and Anthony Van Dyck, King Charles I chief painter. The colour and texture of Dobson work was influenced by Venetian art, but Van Dyck style has little apparent influence on Dobson. Van Dyck himself discovered Dobson when he noticed one of the young artists pictures in a London shop window. He introduced Dobson to the King, who had Dobson paint himself, his sons and members of the court. When Van Dyck died in 1641, Dobson probably succeeded him as sergeant-painter to the King, though proof is lacking. During the English Civil War Dobson was based at the Royalist centre of Oxford and painted many leading Cavaliers. His portrait of the future Charles II as Prince of Wales at the age of around twelve is a notable baroque composition, and perhaps his finest work. He also painted the Duke of York, Prince Rupert of the Rhine and Prince Maurice. Charles II when Prince of Wales, circa 1642 or 1643.Around sixty of Dobson works survive, mostly half-length portraits most of them dated from 1642 or later. The thick impasto of his early work gave way to a mere skim of paint, perhaps reflecting a wartime scarcity of materials. After Oxford fell to the Parliamentarians, in June 1646, Dobson returned to London. Now without patronage, he was briefly imprisoned for debt and died in poverty at the age of thirty-six. Dobson is regarded as a talented painter with a fine sense for colour and good powers of observation. However, an entirely English training such as Dobson could not be first rate in the early 17th century and he had technical weaknesses[citation needed]. There are examples of Dobson work at Tate Britain and the National Portrait Gallery in London and at several English country houses. The most comprehensive study of Dobson and his work is William Dobson, 1611?C1646 an exhibition catalogue written by M. Rogers for a 1983 exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.  Related Paintings of William Dobson :. | Endymion Porter | Charles II as a boy commander | The Painter with Sir Charles Cottrell and Sir Balthasar Gerbier by William Dobson | Allegorical portrait of Charles II of England when Prince of Wales with a page on the right and the head of Medusa bottom left | Endymion Porter Around 1642-5 |
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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