A Peacock and Poultry in a Garden

MARMADUKE CRADDOCK

1660-1717

English School

A Peacock and Poultry in a Garden

Oil on canvas

 71 x 106 cms

Marmaduke Craddock was born at Somerton near Ilchester and, until recently, had been wrongly called Luke Craddock.  He started his career as an apprentice at the home of an artisan painter in London but, due to his great energy and driving ambition, soon became an individual artist working in his own style.

He was a close follower of the important English bird and animal painter, Francis Barlow, but mainly in subject matter rather than style.  The English School of animal painting began with these two artists in the closing stages of the seventeenth century.  Craddock may be distinguished from Barlow by a bolder and more strongly coloured technique. The landscapes, in which he sets his lively fowl, which are often pursued by a hawk, are delicately painted and accurately depict the aspect of the fens and farmland of Carolean England. He died in London.

He usually painted on canvas in varying sizes from quite small to large chimney-piece size works. However he did occasionally employ wooden panels as the medium and there is a tea canister which is decorated on four sides in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s “Design and the Decorative Arts in Britain 1500-1900”.   This particular item is made of metal in London and is one of the few signed works by Craddock.

 Examples of the artist’s work can be found in the Painter’s Hall, London and the British Museum.