Godfrey Kneller
Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet (born August 8, 1646 in Lübeck , † October 19, 1723 in London ) was a German portrait painter and British court artist .
Life
Kneller was born as Gottfried Kniller in Lübeck. He came from a family of artists; his father Zacharias Kniller was a painter in Lübeck and his younger brother, Andreas Kneller , later became a composer. Together with his other brother Johann Zacharias (1644–1702), who was also a painter, Gottfried emigrated to Great Britain after the death of their father.
A former student of Ferdinand Bol and Rembrandt , he became one of the leading portrait painters of the late 17th and early 18th centuries . He painted portraits of ten ruling European monarchs, including King Louis XIV of France. In 1680 he was appointed court painter by Charles II and in 1691 by Wilhelm III. the Knights defeated. George I made him hereditary baronet on May 24, 1715 , of Whitton in the County of Middlesex .
He also created 48 portraits of the members of the Kit Cat Club , which organized Whig Party members interested in politics and the arts. He was also director of the Kneller Academy of Painting and Drawing , which resided on Great Queen Street in London from 1711 to 1716 . He died of a fever in 1723 and was buried in Twickenham Church , London . In Westminster Abbey a reminiscent epitaph to him - the only for a painter in this church. Since his marriage to Susannah Cawley († 1729), which he entered into in 1704, remained childless, his baronet title expired upon his death.
Kneller's pupils included Friedrich Wilhelm Weidemann , the court painter to the Prussian prince and later King Friedrich Wilhelm I , and his cousin Carl Emil Weidemann, the court painter to the Prussian Queen Sophia Dorothea.
Works (selection)
Publicly owned works
- The philosopher or the old scholar (1668), Lübeck, St. Annen Museum Lübeck with the counterpart of the young scholar of his brother Johann Zacharias
- Portrait of Thomas Fredenhagen , Lübeck councilor and merchant, St. Annen Museum
- Portrait of Katharina Fredenhagen, b. Millies , wife of Thomas Fredenhagen, St. Annen Museum
- Portrait of Ludwig Maximilian Mehmet von Königstreu , royal personal chamberlain, convent hall of the Barsinghausen monastery
- Portrait of Maria Hedewig Mehmet von Königstreu, b. Wedekind , convent hall of the Barsinghausen monastery
- Self-portrait , St. Annen Museum
- Epitaph Zacharias Kneller , Katharinenkirche in Lübeck . Godfrey and Johann Zacharias painted their father's epitaph together. It is located in the Katharinenkirche in Lübeck on the fourth pillar of the south aisle.
- Portrait of Guido von Starhemberg , Imperial General , Heeresgeschichtliches Museum , Vienna .
- Portrait of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos and his Family , 1713, National Gallery of Canada
Works in private ownership
- Portrait Isaac Newton , 1689
- Portrait of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough , around 1705, Blenheim Palace , owned by James Spencer-Churchill, 12th Duke of Marlborough
Picture gallery
Isaac Newton (1689)
James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos with family (1713)
Guido von Starhemberg (around 1710/15)
literature
- Wilhelm A. Ackermann : The portrait painter Sir Godfrey Kniller in relation to the art education of his time. Leipzig 1845.
- Eva-Suzanne Bayer-Klötzer: Kneller, Sir Godfrey. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 176 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Wolfgang Michael: Kneller, Gottfried . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 55, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1910, pp. 814-820.
Web links
- Literature by and about Godfrey Kneller in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about Godfrey Kneller in the German Digital Library
- Search for "Godfrey Kneller" in the SPK digital portal of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
- Works by Godfrey Kneller at Zeno.org .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Description and illustration
- ↑ Wolfgang Ewig: Portrait pictures of Ludwig Maximilian Mehmet von Königstreu and his descendants in the Barsinghausen monastery (published by the Heimatbund Niedersachsen eV - Barsinghausen group), Barsinghausen 1993
- ↑ Complete text of the inscription with explanation and translation by: Adolf Clasen: Verhabene Schätze - Lübeck's Latin inscriptions in the original and in German. Lübeck 2002, p. 46 ff. ISBN 3-7950-0475-6
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Kneller, Godfrey |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kniller, Gottfried; Kneller, Gottfried; Kniller, Godfrey; Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 1st Baronet |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German portrait painter and court painter to several British monarchs |
DATE OF BIRTH | August 8, 1646 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Lübeck |
DATE OF DEATH | October 19, 1723 |
Place of death | London |