1. Godfrey Kneller was born Gottfried Kniller in the Free City of Lubeck, the son of Zacharias Kniller, a portrait painter.
11 Facts About Godfrey Kneller
1. 2.
Godfrey Kneller studied in Leiden, but became a pupil of Ferdinand Bol and Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn in Amsterdam.
3.
Godfrey Kneller then travelled with his brother John Zacharias Kneller, who was an ornamental painter, to Rome and Venice in the early 1670s, painting historical subjects and portraits in the studio of Carlo Maratti, and later moved to Hamburg.
4.
Godfrey Kneller was introduced to, and painted a portrait of, Charles II.
5.
Godfrey Kneller's portraits set a pattern that was followed until William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds.
6.
When Sir Peter Lely died in 1680, Godfrey Kneller was jointly appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary with John Riley to the Crown by Charles II.
7.
Godfrey Kneller's paintings were praised by Whig members including John Dryden, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, and Alexander Pope.
8.
Godfrey Kneller was the daughter of the Reverend John Cawley, Archdeacon of Lincoln and Rector of Henley-on-Thames, and the granddaughter of regicide William Cawley.
9.
Godfrey Kneller died of fever in 1723 at Great Queen Street and his remains were interred at Twickenham.
10.
Godfrey Kneller had been a churchwarden at St Mary's, Twickenham, when the 14th-century nave collapsed in 1713 and was active in the plans for the church's reconstruction by John James.
11.
The site of the house Godfrey Kneller built in 1709 in Whitton, near Twickenham, became occupied by the mid-19th century Godfrey Kneller Hall, home of the Royal Military School of Music.