Sir Nathaniel Bacon (1585–1627) was a painter, landowner and horticulturist from

Culford Culford is a village and civil parish about north of Bury St Edmunds and north east of London in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. According to the 2011 Census the parish had a population of 578, a decrease from 620 recorded at ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, England. Sir Nathaniel Bacon by Sir Nathaniel Bacon

Art

Nathaniel Bacon (1585-1627) - Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit - T06995 - Tate

Bacon was particularly known for his kitchen and market scenes, dominated by

still-life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, boo ...

depictions of large vegetables and fruit, often accompanied by a buxom maid, the most well known being "The Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit" (

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

London). This predilection for cook or market scenes is much more common among

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

and

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

painters, see for example

Joachim Beuckelaer Joachim Beuckelaer (c. 1533 – c. 1570/4) was a Flemish painter specialising in market and kitchen scenes with elaborate displays of food and household equipment. He also painted still lifes with no figures in the central scene.

, or from a later generation, Pieter Cornelisz van Rijck, and

Cornelis Jacobsz Delff Cornelis Jacobsz. Delff (1570–1643) was a Dutch Golden Age still life painter. Biography Delff was born in Gouda. According to Houbraken he was first a pupil of his father Jacob Delff, and then of Cornelis van Haarlem.

. Only nine of Bacon's paintings were thought to survive until a portrait in

Government House, Sydney The Government House is the heritage-listed vice-regal residence of the governor of New South Wales, Australia, located on Conservatorium Road in the Sydney central business district adjacent to the Royal Botanic Garden, overlooking Sydn ...

was identified as a portrait of his wife, Jane, Lady Cornwallis. Bacon is credited with the first known British landscape, and also painted several

self-portrait A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...

s and a number of other portraits. He was created a

Knight of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as on ...

in 1625, in honour of the Coronation of Charles I.

Personal life

Nathaniel Bacon The artist’s wife, Jane Bacon, Lady Cornwallis, née Meautys

He was the youngest son of

Sir Nicholas Bacon, 1st Baronet, of Redgrave Sir Nicholas Bacon, 1st Baronet (ca. 1540 – 22 November 1624), of Redgrave, Suffolk, English Member of Parliament. In 1611 he became the first man to be made a baronet. Bacon would serve on many commissions. The Privy Council of the United K ...

, who was the elder brother of the leading politician and philosopher

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

( Lord Verulam), and so with connections to the political elite of late Elizabethan England. In 1613 or 1614, Bacon married

Jane Cornwallis Jane, Lady Cornwallis, later Lady Bacon ( Meautys; 1581–1659), was an English courtier and letter writer, whose correspondence was published (in 1842 in London, 8vo, and in 2003). Jane Meautys was the daughter of Hercules Meautys of West Ham ...

(née Meautys), the widow of Sir William Cornwallis, and mother of

Frederick Cornwallis, 1st Baron Cornwallis Frederick Cornwallis, 1st Baron Cornwallis (14 March 1610/1 – January 1662) was an English peer, MP and Privy Counsellor. He was Treasurer of the Household 1660–1662. He was the eldest surviving son of Sir William Cornwallis of Brome, Su ...

. Bacon died at Culford Hall (now rebuilt and renamed as

Culford Park Culford Park in Culford, Suffolk, England, is a country house that is the former seat of the Bacon, Cornwallis and Cadogan families, and now it is the home of Culford School. History of the Park From at least 1429 the Coote family had lived ...

) at the age of 42. He was buried there on 1 July 1627. Their daughter, Jane, aged three years, died that same October, and is buried alongside her father. The entries of their burials follow each other in the Culford Parish Burial Register. Their daughter Anne Bacon married

Sir Thomas Meautys Sir Thomas Meautys (1592–1649) was an English civil servant and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1621 and 1640. Biography Meautys was the son of Thomas Meautys of West Ham and of St Julian's Hospital, Hertfordshire, and his ...

in 1639. Anne Bacon, Lady Drury, was his sister, and it is believed he may have had some influence on the remarkable series of small paintings which make up

Lady Drury's Closet Lady Drury's Closet (also known as the Hawstead Panels) is a series of painted wooden panels of early 17th-century date, currently installed in the room over the porch of Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough ...

. Bacon is commemorated at St Mary's Church, Culford with a monument by the sculptor

Nicholas Stone Nicholas Stone (1586/87 – 24 August 1647) was an English sculptor and architect. In 1619 he was appointed master-mason to James I, and in 1626 to Charles I. During his career he was the mason responsible for not only the building of ...

. In June 1628 Bacon's brother Sir Edmund Bacon saw it being made at Stone's workshop in London's

Long Acre Long Acre is a street in the City of Westminster in central London. It runs from St Martin's Lane, at its western end, to Drury Lane in the east. The street was completed in the early 17th century and was once known for its coach-makers, and l ...

, and noted "My brother's monument goes well forward, I saw it so much as is done, the day before I came own of town".Richard Griffin Baron Braybrooke, ''The Private Correspondence of Jane Lady Cornwallis; 1613-1644'' (London, 1842), p. 194.

References

External links

*
The Cookmaid with Still Life in the Tate Collection

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bacon, Nathaniel 1585 births 1627 deaths 17th-century English painters English male painters Knights of the Bath Younger sons of baronets

Nathaniel , nickname = {{Plainlist, * Nat * Nate , footnotes = Nathaniel is an English variant of the biblical Greek name Nathanael. People with the name Nathaniel * Nathaniel Archibald (1952–2018), American basketball player * Nate A ...