Sir Charles Eastlake

Sir Charles Lock Eastlake PRA (17 November 1793 – 24 December 1865) was an English painter, gallery director, collector and writer of the early 19th century.

Eastlake was born in Plymouth, Devon, the fourth son of an Admiralty lawyer. He was educated at local grammar schools in Plymouth and, briefly, at Charterhouse (then still in London). He was committed to becoming a painter, and in 1809 he became the first pupil of Benjamin Haydon and a student at the Royal Academy schools in London — where he later exhibited.

However his first exhibited work was shown at the British Institution in 1815, a year in which he also visited Paris and studied works in the Louvre (then known as the Musée Napoléon). His first notable success was a painting Napoleon on Board the Bellerophon in Plymouth Sound (1815; now in the National Maritime Museum, London). Like many other people at the time, Eastlake had hired a boat to take him to the ship on which Napoleon was held captive in Plymouth harbour. He sketched him from the boat.

In 1816, he travelled to Rome where he painted members of the British elite staying in Italy including fellow artists Sir Thomas Lawrence and J. M. W. Turner. He also travelled to Naples and Athens.

Despite being based predominantly in mainland Europe, Eastlake regularly sent works back to London for exhibition, and in 1827 he was elected a member of the Royal Academy. Three years later, he returned to England permanently where he continued to paint historic and biblical paintings set in Mediterranean landscapes.

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