Hendrik Kobell was a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 landscape and marine painter, etcher, draftsman

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

 and watercolorist.

Biography

He studied art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

 in his home town, then for some time in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. He was sent to England by his father to follow a commercial career, but returned in 1770, determined to become an artist, and studied for two years in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 under Jacob de Vos and Cornelis Ploos van Amstel with such success that he was elected a member of the Academy. He settled afterwards at Rotterdam.

Work

He painted in oils and watercolors, doing landscapes and marines. His work is distinguished by skillful manipulation and life-like depiction. His work as a draftsman and etcher was also notable. He was esteemed for his numerous drawings, executed in pen and heightened with India ink

India ink

India ink is a simple black ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comic books and comic strips.-Composition:...

.

Family

He was a cousin of Ferdinand Kobell

Ferdinand Kobell

Ferdinand Kobell was a German painter and engraver.-Biography:He was studying at the University of Heidelberg when the Elector of Bavaria, admiring a landscape, aided him to devote his entire time to painting. He became the pupil of Peter Verschaffelt. He next studied art in Paris...

 and Franz Kobell

Franz Kobell

Franz Kobell was a German painter, etcher and draftsman.-Biography:The Elector Karl Theodor of Bavaria sent him to Italy to study art and he remained there till 1785, working from nature and monumental buildings, mainly in Rome...

, German painters and brothers, and the father of Jan Kobell

Jan Kobell

Jan Kobell was a Dutch animal and landscape painter.-Biography:He was a pupil of Willem Rutgaart van der Wall at Utrecht. He studied diligently from nature, and took Paul Potter for his model, acquiring his talent for animal as well as landscape work...

, an animal painter.