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


Art

Bacon was particularly known for his kitchen and market scenes, dominated by still-life 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. 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-portraits 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

He was the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, 1st Baronet, of Redgrave, 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) 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 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. 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 la ...
, 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