Samuel Cooper
Encyclopedia
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...
miniature
Portrait miniature
A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolour, or enamel.Portrait miniatures began to flourish in 16th century Europe and the art was practiced during the 17th century and 18th century...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, and younger brother of Alexander Cooper
Alexander Cooper
Alexander Cooper was an English Baroque miniature painter.-Biography:He was the elder brother of the painter Samuel Cooper. He learned painting from Peter Oliver and was active in London from 1633 - 1642, whereupon he traveled to The Hague...
.
He is believed to have been born in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, and was a nephew of John Hoskins, the miniature painter, by whom he was educated. He lived in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, and frequented the Covent Garden Coffee-House. Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
, who makes many references to him, tells us he was an excellent musician, playing well upon the lute
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
, and also a good linguist, speaking French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
with ease. According to other contemporary writers, he was a short, stout man, of a ruddy countenance. He married one Christiana, whose portrait is at Welbeck Abbey, and he had one daughter. Christiana's sister Edith was the mother of Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
.
In 1668 he was instructed by Pepys to paint a portrait of Mrs Pepys, for which he charged £30. He is known to have painted also the portrait of John Aubrey
John Aubrey
John Aubrey FRS, was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the collection of short biographical pieces usually referred to as Brief Lives...
, which was presented in 1691 to the Ashmolean Museum
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...
. From his correspondence with John Ray
John Ray
John Ray was an English naturalist, sometimes referred to as the father of English natural history. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after "having ascertained that such had been the practice of his family before him".He published important works on botany,...
, the naturalist. Evelyn refers to him in 1662, when, on the occasion of the visit that the diarist paid to the king, Cooper was drawing the royal face and head for the new coinage.
Examples of his work are to be found at Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, notable for its long association with the British royal family and its architecture. The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I it...
, Belvoir Castle
Belvoir Castle
Belvoir Castle is a stately home in the English county of Leicestershire, overlooking the Vale of Belvoir . It is a Grade I listed building....
, Montague House, Welbeck Abbey
Welbeck Abbey
Welbeck Abbey near Clumber Park in North Nottinghamshire was the principal abbey of the Premonstratensian order in England and later the principal residence of the Dukes of Portland.-Monastic period:...
, Ham House, the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam and in the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan. His largest miniature is in the possession of the duke of Richmond and Gordon at Goodwood. A piece of the artists handwriting is to be seen at the back of one of his miniatures in the Welbeck Abbey collection, and one of his drawings in black chalk is in the University Gallery at Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
. His own portrait of himself is in the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan.
The date of his death has been handed down by a record in the diary of Mary Beale
Mary Beale
Mary Beale was an English portrait painter. She became one of the most important portrait painters of 17th century England, and has been described as the first professional female English painter.-Life and work:...
, the miniature painter; and in some letters from Mr Charles Manners, addressed to Lord Roos
John Manners, 1st Duke of Rutland
John Manners, 1st Duke of Rutland and 9th Earl of Rutland was the son of John Manners, 8th Earl of Rutland and Frances Montagu. His maternal grandparents were Sir Edward Montagu, 1st Baron Montagu of Boughton and his wife Elizabeth Jeffries...
, dated 1672, now amongst the duke of Rutland
Duke of Rutland
Earl of Rutland and Duke of Rutland are titles in the peerage of England, derived from Rutland, a county in the East Midlands of England. The Earl of Rutland was elevated to the status of Duke in 1703 and the titles were merged....
's papers at Belvoir, the writer refers to Cooper's serious illness on 4 May 1672, and to his doubt as to whether the artist would ever recover. Mary Beale's reference to his decease is in the following words: "Sunday, May 5, 1672 Mr Samuel Cooper, the most famous limner of the world for a face, dyed."
According to the art historian George Charles Williamson, "There is urgent demand for a memoir of Samuel Cooper. The details of his life are hardly known. ... The early part of his artistic career he spent in Paris and Holland, and it is very likely that careful research in the records of the Bibliothèque Nationale might reveal information respecting him which would be of the greatest interest."