BACON, Sir Nathaniel

1585 - 1627

Nathaniel Bacon was born at Redgrave, Suffolk in August 1585, the grandson of Lord Keeper Bacon (1510–1579) and the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon (c.1543-November 1624), subsequently the premier baronet of England, and his wife, Anne née Butts (c.1547–19 September 1616). Nathaniel was raised at Redgrave Hall and to mark the coronation of King Charles 1, admitted to the Order of the Bath in February 1626. On his marriage to Jane, née Meautys (1580/81–1659), widow of Sir William Cornwallis, on 1 May 1614, Bacon acquired Brome Hall, Suffolk and later inherited Culford Hall, 4 miles north of Bury St Edmund’s, from his parents. Bacon has been described as ‘the most accomplished [British] amateur painter of the [seventeenth] century’, although fewer than a dozen of his works survive, several of which are self-portraits. The earliest documentary reference to specific pictures is in the inventory of Culford attached to his widow's will of 1659, which mentions ‘Ten great peeces in wainscoate of fish and fowle &c. done by Sr: Nath: Bacon’. The 'Cookmaid with Still Life of Birds', still in the possession of the artist's descendants, is thought to be one of these, as are the 'Cookmaid with Still Life of Game', acquired by the family in the 1950s, and the Tate collection's 'Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit', all executed around 1620 to 1625. A tiny landscape, painted on copper, bearing the conjoined monogram NB (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), is thought to be the ‘small Landskip drawn by Sir Nath. Bacon’ listed in the Tradescant Collection in 1656 (Musaeum Tradescantianum, 1656, 40). The Antwerp artist Frans Snyders (11 November 1579–19 August 1657 was a major exponent of the genre, and Bacon visited that city in 1613. As a gentleman, Bacon had no need to paint for his living, but his art was clearly significant to him and his funerary monument in St Mary's Church, Culford, Suffolk bears two carved painter's palettes. In 1622 Henry Peacham (1578-c.1644) commended him as a well-born Englishman who could draw and paint, while Edward Norgate (bapt 12 February 1581-December 1650) credited Bacon with inventing a particular ‘Pinke’ (i.e. yellow) used by other artists, such as Peter Oliver (1589-December 1647) and John Hoskins (c.1590-22 February 1665). Nathaniel Bacon died in June 1627 and was buried at St Mary's church, Culford, on 1 July 1627. The record of his funeral states that he died of ‘a lingering illness’, and letters indicate a decline in health from about 1622. Of his three children only Anne (b. 1615), widow of Thomas Meautys (1592–October 1649), had a daughter who died in childhood and who married, secondly, Sir Harbottle Grimston 2nd Bart (27 January 1603–2 January 1685), had one daughter. [Nathaniel Bacon: Artist, Gentleman and Gardener by Karen Hearn (2006)]

---

Works by This Artist