Samuel Cooper
Cooper, Samuel
Born in 1609 in London; died there May 5, 1672. English painter.
Samuel Cooper worked in London, in France at the court of Louis XIV, and in Holland. The most eminent English master of realist miniature portraiture, he created psychological portraits that were strikingly dynamic—for example, those of Oliver Cromwell and other leaders of the English Bourgeois Revolution of the 17th century. Cooper’s portraits executed during the Restoration of the Stuarts are marked by boldness, truthfulness, and insight.