Marmaduke Cradock

{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Use British English|date=May 2015}} '''Marmaduke Cradock''' (1660 – 24 March 1716) was an English painter of birds and other animals. Some older sources<ref>Including Bryan and Walpole</ref> give his first name as Luke but this may be in error.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.oxfordartonline.com/benezit/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.001.0001/acref-9780199773787-e-00044029 |title=Cradock, Marmaduke |date=2011-10-31 |publisher=Oxford University Press |volume=1 |language=en |doi=10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.b00044029}}</ref> Self taught, he produced art works that were rarely signed.

==Life== [[File:Cradock, Marmaduke - Mallards on a Pond - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''Mallards on a Pond'' (Dulwich Picture Gallery)]] Cradock was an English painter, noted for his depictions of birds, dead game, and other animals.<ref name="bryan">{{harvnb|Bryan|1886}}</ref> He was born in Somerton, Somerset and moved to London, where he served an apprenticeship to a house-painter. He was, however, self-taught as an artist,<ref name=bryan/> becoming skilled in the depiction of birds and animals. Horace Walpole wrote that "I have seen some pieces by his hand which he painted with a freedom and a fire that entitled them to more distinction".<ref name=walp/>

According to Walpole, Cradock deliberately shunned aristocratic patronage.<blockquote> He worked in general by the day, and for dealers who retailed his works; possessing that conscious dignity of talent which made him hate to be employed by men whose birth and fortune confined his fancy, and restrained his freedom.<ref name=walp/></blockquote>

==Work== According to the RKD his work as a still life and bird painter was influenced by Melchior d'Hondecoeter, Peter Frans Casteels, and Jakob Bogdani.<ref name=RKD>[https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/18933 Marmaduke Cradock] in the RKD</ref>

Sketches in the collection of the British Museum indicate that he based at least some of the birds in his paintings on drawings from life. He tended to paint domestic birds and common wild species, rather than the exotic varieties favoured by some other artists.<ref name=tate/> He sometimes introduced elements of drama such as attacks by predatory animals into his bird paintings, a feature shared with the works of Francis Barlow.<ref name=tate/> Buyers of his paintings often incorporated them into schemes of interior decoration, setting them into panelling above doors or fireplaces.<ref name=walp/><ref name=tate/>

His ''Peacock and Other Birds in a Landscape'' is in the collection of the Tate Gallery.<ref name=tate>{{cite web| url=http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=20211&searchid=15450|title= A Peacock and Other Birds in a Landscape|publisher=Tate Gallery|access-date=9 June 2013}}</ref> It is only one of three known signed works by him.<ref name=tate/>

==Death== He died in London in 1716, and was buried at St Mary, Whitechapel.<ref name=walp>{{cite book|chapter=Luke Cradock|title=The Works of Horatio Walpole, Earl of Orford |last=Walpole |first=Horatio|volume=3 |year=1798 |publisher=GG. and J. Robinson and J. Edwards |location=London |page=409}}</ref> Soon afterwards some of his works were sold at three or four times the price he had received for them in his lifetime.<ref name=bryan>{{harvnb|Bryan|1886}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Sources== * {{Bryan (3rd edition)|title=Cradock, Luke |volume=1 }}

==External links== *{{cite web |url=http://www.artnet.com/artists/marmaduke-cradock/past-auction-results |title=Marmaduke Cradock |work=Artnet}} *{{Art UK bio}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cradock, Marmaduke}} Category:1660 births Category:1716 deaths Category:17th-century English painters Category:English male painters Category:18th-century English painters Category:People from Somerton, Somerset Category:British bird artists Category:English animal artists Category:18th-century English male artists