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William Dobson
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Early Days:
William Dobson (March 4, 1610 – October 28, 1646) was a portraitist and one of the first notable English painters, praised by his contemporary John Aubrey as "the most excellent painter that England has yet bred".
Dobson was born in London the son of a decorative artist, and was apprenticed to William Peake and probably later joined the studio of Francis Cleyn. He is believed to have had access to the Royal Collection and to have copied works by Titian and Anthony Van Dyck, King Charles I chief painter. The colour and texture of Dobson's work was influenced by Venetian art, but Van Dyck's style has little apparent influence on Dobson. Van Dyck himself discovered Dobson when he noticed one of the young artist's pictures in a London shop window. He introduced Dobson to the King, who had Dobson paint himself, his sons and members of the court.
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Career:
Around sixty of Dobson's works survive mostly half-length portraits most of them dated from 1642 or later. The thick impasto of his early work gave way to a mere skim of paint, perhaps reflecting a wartime scarcity of materials. After Oxford fell to the Parliamentarians, in June 1646, Dobson returned to London.
Now without patronage, he was briefly imprisoned for debt and died in poverty at the age of thirty-six.
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