Sir Godfrey Kneller

Portrait painter, born in Lübeck, N Germany. He studied at Amsterdam and in Italy, went to London (1676), and was appointed court painter (1680). He was knighted (1692), and in 1715 made a baronet. His best-known works are his 48 portraits of the Whig ‘Kit-Cat Club’ (1700–17, National Portrait Gallery, London), and of nine sovereigns.

Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet (August 8, 1646–October 19, 1723) was the leading portrait painter in England during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and was court painter to British monarchs from Charles II to George I. over 40 "Kit-cat portraits" of members of the Kit-Cat Club; and ten "beauties" of the court of William III, to match a similar series of ten beauties of the court of Charles II painted by his predecessor as court painter, Sir Peter Lely. He worked in Rome and Venice in the early 1670s, painting historical subjects and portraits, and later moved to Hamburg. He came to England in 1674, at the invitation of the Duke of Monmouth, accompanied by his brother, John Zacharias Kneller, who was an ornamental painter. He was introduced to, and painted a portrait of, Charles II.

Nevertheless, he established himself as a leading portrait artist in England. When Sir Peter Lely died in 1680, Kneller was appointed Principal Painter to the Crown by Charles II. He produced a series of "Kit-cat" portraits of 48 leading politicians and men of letters, members of the Kit-Cat Club.

Kneller died of fever in 1723 and his remains were interred in Twickenham Church. (He was a churchwarden there at the time the 14th Century nave collapsed in 1713 and was involved in the plans for its reconstruction.) The site of the house he built in 1709 in Whitton near Twickenham is now occupied by the mid-19th Century Kneller Hall, home of the Royal Military School of Music.