Peter Tillemans
Founded English sporting painting school
Peter Tillemans was a Flemish painter, best known for his works on sporting and topographical subjects. Alongside John Wootton and James Seymour, he was one of the founders of the English school of sporting painting. From 1708 until his death he lived and worked in England. Tillemans was born in Antwerp in c. 1684, the son of a diamond-cutter, and studied painting there under various masters. As he was the brother-in-law of another Flemish painter, Pieter Casteels, it is assumed that he married before leaving Antwerp. Like other artists from the Low Countries such as Dirk Maas, Jan Wyck and Willem van de Velde the Younger, Tillemans moved to England. In Tillemans's case he moved in 1708, induced to do so by a picture-dealer called Turner: he spent the rest of his life working there. A chronic sufferer of asthma, Tillemans retired to Richmond "on account of his ill state of health". He died at the house of Dr Cox Macro (1683–1767, later chaplain to George II) in Little Haugh Hall, in Suffolk, on 5 December 1734 (the previous day he "had been busy on a horse portrait") and was buried on 7 December at Stowlangtoft.
Relationship Network
Master student
- Arthur Devis Student
Spouse
Artworks by this artist (22 total)
- Portrait Of A Gentleman On Horseback
- A Harbour Scene With Numerous Figures Attending Market 1709
- Coach And Highwayman
- The Round Course at Newmarket, Cambridgeshire, Preparing for the King’s Plate
- Landscape with two figures in the foreground
- Cavalry Troops and Camp Followers on the Move
- The Battle of Glenshiel 1719. Figures probably include Lord George Murray, c 1700 - 1760; Rob Roy MacGregor, 1671 - 1734; and General Joseph Wightman, d. 1722 1719
- Racing; a Match in Progress
- The Vale of Llangollen
- Horse and Rider Walking to Left in a Hilly Landscape
- Figures in a Landscape by a River
- From Hampstead 1730
- The Duke of Somerset on Horseback
- Poston Bridge, Herefordshire
- From Gravesend; The Block House in Essex
- A Match at Newmarket
- The Reverend Jemmet Browne at a meet of foxhounds 1730-1732
- Hilly Scene with Village and Horseman
- A market scene with a river landscape beyond
- A Saddle Horse of the Duke of Devonshire