Robert Peake the Elder

Among the finest portraitists in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, Peake was active by 1576, when his name appears in a list of six artists employed by the Office of Revels to prepare decorations for the court's Christmas festivities. His earliest documented work is signed and dated 1583, but his most ambitious and famous paintings depict the children of James I (reigned 1603-25). His early training was as a goldsmith, and his full-scale portraits often reflect the vivid, jewel-like colors, patterns, and textures found in miniature painting, a form of art that came within the purview of the goldsmith trade. Peake's artistic legacy extended well beyond his own paintings: subsequent generations of his family produced some of the finest artists of their day, among them his grandson, Robert Peake the Younger.

[Great British Paintings Label Text]