Godfrey Kneller

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Godfrey Kneller, self-portrait, 1685

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

Ludwig Maximilian Mehmet von Königstreu ;
Oil painting in Barsinghausen Monastery

Works in private ownership

Picture gallery

literature

Web links

Commons : Godfrey Kneller  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Description and illustration
  2. ↑ 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
  3. ↑ 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
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