Charles Howard Hodges

Charles Howard Hodges (1764, Portsmouth – July 24, 1837 Amsterdam), was a British painter active in the Netherlands during the French occupation of 18th and early 19th century.

Charles Howard Hodges was a pupil of John Raphael Smith and had visited Amsterdam in 1788; after a two-year stay in Dublin, he moved with his family to The Hague in 1792. In 1797, he and his family moved to Amsterdam, where he lived with his teacher Johann Friedrich August Tischbein at the Prinsengracht N° 205. In Amsterdam, he worked as an artist, specialized in the mezzotint technique he had learned in England and the pastel technique he learned from Tischbein. There, he became a famous painter of portraits; he painted over 700 portraits of the rich and famous of that time. He was also an engraver, printer, art dealer and a member of the Amsterdam art club Felix Meritis.

He is well known for the fact that he painted all the leaders of the Netherlands during the Napoleonic Period – a turbulent time in Dutch history, since the Netherlands went through five different political systems: stadtholder Willem V of the Republic of the United Netherlands, Grand Pensionary Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck of the Batavian Republic, King Louis Bonaparte (King of Holland), Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and king William I of the Netherlands. The only known portrait of Sebald Justinus Brugmans was made by him. A design for the honorary cross of the Order of the Union was rejected by Louis Bonaparte.

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