Page:Dictionary of Artists of the English School (1878).djvu/274



KNELL,, marine painter. Began to exhibit in the Royal Academy in 1835, when he sent 'Folkestone from the Dover Road;' in 1838 he contributed 'The Port of Leith;' in 1846, 'Vessels off the Flemish Coast.' He was a constant contributor to the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy down to 1866. The Queen has one or two of his pictures in her collection which are cleverly painted. He died July 10, 1875, and was buried in the Abney Park Cemetery.

KNELLER, Sir. Bart., portrait painter. Was born of an ancient family, at Lubeck, in 1648. Designed for the army, he was sent to Leyden to study mathematics and fortification; but a love of art predominated, and he was for a time the pupil of Bol, at Amsterdam, and had some instruction from Rembrandt. In 1672 he went to Italy, visited Rome, made some stay at Venice, and in 1674 came to England. He did not purpose to remain here, but gaining the patronage of the Duke of Monmouth, who introduced him to Charles II., he was engaged to paint the King's portrait, and the work pleased so well that was induced to stay. Charles was interested in him, sat to him several times, and sent him to Paris to paint the portrait of Louis XIV. He was equally in favour with James II., and the death of Lely left him without a rival. He painted the portraits of all who were most eminent in his day—the 43 celebrities of the Kit-Cat Club, the ten 'Beauties,' at Hampton Court; and no less than ten sovereigns, were his sitters. He held the office of state painter to Charles II., James II.. William III. (who knighted him in 1692), Queen Anne, and George I., by whom, in 1715, he was created a baronet. He was lauded in the verse of Pope, Dryden, Addison, Steele, Tickell, and Prior; and though he lost 20,000l. in the South Sea scheme, he left an estate of 2,000l. a year. He lived in Covent Garden from 1681 to 1705, and afterwards at Kneller Hall, near Twickenham. He died from the effects of a violent fever, November 7, 1723, and was buried at Twickenham Church. There is a monument to him in Westminster Abbey.

His portraits have great freedom, and are well drawn and coloured, but are slight, and have much sameness and want of completeness. The great number of his works was a bar to their excellence. Their chief fault is the absence of all simplicity and nature—steeped in a vicious, common-place allegory, which deprives them of truth and character. Yet to him is due, during a practice of 30 years in England, the remembrance of our greatest men of his time.

KNELLER, ornamental painter. Born at Lubeck in 1635. Was the elder brother of the foregoing, and came with him to England in 1674. He painted architectural decorations in fresco, and still-life in oil, and copied some of his brother's gortraits in water-colours. He died in Covent Garden in 1702, aged 67, and was buried in the church there.

KNIGHT,, engraver. Practised in London in the second half of the 18th century. There are many works by him after Kauffman, Wheatley, Bunbury, Singleton. Hoppner, and others. He was one of trie governors of the Society of Engravers, founded in 1803 for the relief of members of the profession.

KNIGHT,, miniature painter. Was born in 1776, and was a pupil of Andrew Plimer. She was a good miniaturist. She first exhibited at the Academy in 1807, and from that time was for many years an occasional exhibitor. She was unmarried, and died in 1851.

KNIGHT,, subject painter. Born September 26, 1823, at Newbury, where his father kept a school. He was placed under a solicitor, but he had an early love of drawing, and encouraged by the exhibition of two pictures at the Society of British Artists, and disliking his profession, he came up to London in 1845 to try his fortune as a portrait painter, and entering the schools of the Academy, just managed to live. In 1846 he exhibited for the first time at the Academy, 'Boys playing at Draughts;' and getting over his first difficulties, continued to exhibit at the Academy and the British Institution till his death. His chief painting [sic] are—'Boys Snow-balling,' 1853; 'The Young Naturalist,' 1857; 'The Lost Change,' 1859: with 'Peace versus War,' and 'A Troublesome Neighbour,' 1862. His works are of small size, truthfully painted, usually introducing children. He died July 31, 1863, leaving a widow and young family.

KYSELL,, engraver. Practised in London, chiefly in portraits, about the middle of the 17th century. There is an equestrian portrait of Oliver Cromwell by him.

KYTE,, mezzo-tint engraver. He occasionally painted portraits, and there are several by him rather loose and unfinished, but agreeable for tone and colour. He was convicted in 1725 of uttering a forged bank-note, and sentenced to the pillory; from that time he assumed the translated name of Milvius. He engraved two portraits of Gay, the poet; to the first is attached his real, to the second his assumed name 243