concerning this great painter we learn from Pepys and certain
contemporary records. We know that he was an excellent musician, playing
well on the lute, and a clever linguist, speaking French with ease. He
resided in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and frequented the Covent
Garden coffee-house; he was a short, stout man of a ruddy countenance,
was married and had one daughter. The Duke of Portland's collection at
Welbeck contains the portrait of his wife Christina, and in another
collection there is a portrait of his daughter, both fine paintings by
the master himself. Christina Cooper was a Miss Turner, and her other
sister, Edith, married the father of Alexander Pope. Mrs. Cooper was
Pope's godmother and taught him his letters, and to her godson she
bequeathed a "painted china dish with a silver pot and a dish to set it
in," as well as the reversion of her books, pictures and medals, with
Samuel Cooper's "grinding stone and muller," and some of his portrait
sketches.
It is not quite certain that Cooper was born in England; we know the
date of his birth, 1609, but we have no certain evidence that he was an
Englishman by birth, although there is every probability that this was
the case. He was, however, for a while in France, and he was certainly
in Holland, and possibly in Sweden also, where his brother, Alexander
Cooper, also spent some time. It was in Sweden that we were able to
discover a good deal of information respecting Alexander Cooper, and
notably a statement concerning his account for certain royal portraits
in his own handwriting. Samuel Cooper's appearance is known to us by the
portraits in the Victoria and Albert Museum, but an even more
interesting sketch of him is in the Pierpont Morgan collection, painted
in sepia, on a piece of paper which has been twice folded. An
inscription, which we believe to be in his own handwriting, is at the
back of a portrait at Welbeck Abbey, and is to the effect that the
picture in question, and one or two previous ones, were done for a Mr.
Graham, but had not been paid for at the time the artist was writing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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