Nathaniel Bacon (painter)

For the later painter of this name, see Nathaniel Bacon (painter, fl. 1640).

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

self-portrait

Bacon was an exceptionally skillful amateur painter and gardener.^[1] Only a small group of 9 of his paintings survive. He 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 London). This predilection for cook or market scenes is much more common among Dutch and Flemish painters, see for example Joachim Beuckelaer (1533–1574), or from a later generation, Pieter Cornelisz van Rijck (1567-ca.1637), and Cornelis Jacobsz Delff.

Bacon is credited with the first known British landscape^[2] and also painted a self-portrait^[3] and a number of other portraits. He was created a Knight of the Bath^[4] in 1625, in honour of the Coronation of Charles I. He died at Culford Hall at the age of 42. He was buried there on 1 July 1627. His little 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.

He was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, 1st Baronet.^[5]

Notes

1. ^ Funerary monument, St Mary's Church, Culford, Suffolk
2. ^ 'Landscape 1620s at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford.
3. ^ 'National Portrait Gallery'
4. ^ Concise Dictionary of National Biography
5. ^ thePeerage.com - Person Page 12841

External links

• The Cookmaid with Still Life in the Tate Collection

Persondata
Name	Bacon, Nathaniel
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1585
Place of birth
Date of death	1627
Place of death