Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1772-1834
portrait by Pieter Van Dyke
oil on canvas, 1795
(London National Portrait Gallery, Room 18)
no copyright infringement intended

A great English poet, also a literary critic and philosopher. A major figure among the so-called Lake Poets, he is considered one of the founding fathers of the Romantic Age in English literature, together with his friend Wordsworth. The moment of birth of the new age is considered the year 1798, when the two published jointly the Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge's critical work, especially on Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc) to English-speaking culture.

(source: Coleridge)

(Pieter Van Dyke)

(A Life in Books)

Robert Southey

Robert Southey
1774-1843
portrait by Pieter Van Dyke
oil on canvas, 1795
(London National Portrait Gallery, Room 18)
no copyright infringement intended

Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called Lake Poets (a group of English poets named so by the Edinburgh Review only to be uniformly disparaged; actually each of them was quite different of the others), also a prolific letter writer, literary scholar, essay writer, historian and biographer. His biographies include John Bunyan, John Wesley, William Cowper, Oliver Cromwell and Horatio Nelson. He was also a renowned scholar of Portuguese and Spanish literature and history, translating a number of works from those two languages into English.Originally a radical supporter of the Great French Revolution he became in time a staunch conservatory (few are those who age gracefully).

(source: Robert Southey, comments: mine)

(Pieter Van Dyke)

(A Life in Books)

A Portrait of John Milton by Peter Van Dyke

John Milton
line engraving by C. Widder
after Pieter Van Dyke
(London National Portrait Gallery)
no copyright infringement intended

(John Milton)

(Pieter Van Dyke)

Pieter Van Dyke

(oil painting lessons)
no copyright infringement intended

Pieter (or Peter) Van Dyke (1729-1799) was born in The Netherlands and moved to England at the invitation of Sir Joshua Reynolds, to assist in painting draperies. He exhibited at the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1762 and 1764, and at the Free Society of Artists in 1767. There are two portraits painted by Van Dyke (along with a line engraving by C. Widder made after the original of Van Dyke) at the London National Portrait Gallery (in Room 18, to be very exact).

(source: London National Portrait Gallery)

• Young Girl With Her Silk Embroidery, 1782
• A Portrait of Robert Southey, 1795
• A Portrait of Coleridge, 1795
• A Portrait of John Milton

(Old Masters)