Gottfried Kniller was born in the Baltic port of Lübeck on 8 August 1646. He studied in Leyden and became a pupil of both Ferdinand Bol and Rembrandt in Amsterdam. He worked in Rome and Venice in the early 1670s, painting historical subjects and portraits and later moved to Hamburg. His Elijah (1672; Tate Gallery, London) gives evidence of a style somewhat similar to that of Bol. He travelled to England in 1674, at the invitation of the Duke of Monmouth, accompanied by his brother, John Zacharias Kneller, who was an ornamental painter. Godfrey was introduced to and painted a portrait of King Charles II. In England, he established himself as a baroque portrait painter to both the court and society, at first competing with, then succeeding Sir Peter Lely. He founded a studio which churned out portraits on an industrial scale, relying on a brief sketch of the face, with details added to a formulaic model, aided by the fashion for gentlemen to wear full wigs. He was assisted by many young artists and unsurpprisingly, the output of his studio was of uneven quality. His portraits set a pattern that was followed until the advent of Hogarth and Reynolds. When Sir Peter Lely died in 1680, Kneller succeeded him as Principal Painter to the Crown. Over a period of 20 years, he produced his ‘Kit-cat’ portraits of 48 leading politicians and men of letters. The portraits were of a group of influential Whigs, all members of the Kit-cat Club. As a political party, the Whigs supported the 1688 Revolution, which brought the Dutchman William III to the throne and were pledged to uphold the Protestant succession. The Kit-cat Club was founded in King William III’s reign, largely by Lord Somers, the Lord Chancellor, and the publisher Jacob Tonson, its secretary. It began meeting in Christopher Cat’s tavern near Temple Bar, and took its name from his mutton pies, known as Kit-cats. Members included leading Whig MPs and landowners, younger men like Sir Robert Walpole and William Pulteney, the writers Addison, Vanbrugh, Congreve and Steele, as well as the Duke of Marlborough and the Earl of Burlington, although these last two are missing from the set of portraits. The Kit-cat series set a lasting and much imitated format of a small half-length with a plain background. Some of the series may be seen in the National Portrait Gallery. In 1713, Kneller, together with Thomas Vernon were chosen to be Churchwardens of St Mary’s, Twickenham. During their tenure, they had to cope with the rebuilding of the 14th century nave after its collapse. Kneller was appointed Principal Painter to William III and Mary II in 1689 and initially held the post jointly with John Riley. His knighthood three years later, was followed in 1715 by a baronetcy conferred by King George I – the first to be conferred on a painter. He also headed the Kneller Academy of Painting and Drawing situated in Great Queen Street, London. His major works included The Chinese Convert (1687) (in the Royal Collection at Windsor); Edward and Lady Mary Howard (Dulwich Art Gallery); a series of ten reigning European monarchs, including King Louis XIV of France; and ten so-called ‘Hampton Beauties’ of the court of King William III, to match a similar series of ten ‘Windsor Beauties’ of the court of Charles II painted by Sir Peter Lely. Kneller’s other works included 14 portraits of admirals, commissioned from him and Dahl by Queen Anne and her consort, Prince George of Denmark. Kneller was acquainted with Alexander Pope, who once in jest complemented him on the superiority of his works to those of Nature and regretted his absence at the Creation. Kneller vainly replied: ‘I should have made some things better’. In his spare time, Kneller sat as a Justice of the Peace and was noted in the discharge of that office for some distinctly original interpretations of the common law. However, he should be noted for his no-nonsense dictum: ‘Only God Almighty makes painters.’ The site of the house he built in 1709 at Whitton near Twickenham is now occupied by Kneller Hall, home of the Royal Military School of Music. Kneller died of a fever on 19 October 1723 and chose to be buried in St Mary’s Church, Twickenham rather than Westminster Abbey. He held ‘because they do bury fools there.’ Upon his death, he left some 800 pictures at Kneller Hall, which were sold by his widow. In Lübeck there are works by Kneller to be seen in the St Annen Museum and Saint Catherine’s Church. His former works at St Mary’s Church there were destroyed by the Allied bombing of Lübeck in 1942.