DOBSON, WILLIAM, was born in the parish of St. Andrews, Holborn, in 1610. lie was a very distinguished painter, and suc ceeded Vandyck in the favour of Charles I., who used to call him the English Tintoret. His father was of a good family of St. Albans, but being at length in icor circumstances, his eon was apprenticed to l'eake, afterwards Sir 11oLert Peake, painter end picture-dealer, who kept a shop at liolborn Bridge; but be learnt more, according to Il Symonds, of Francis Clem a German, who stood also in groat favour with Charles 1.
Sir Robert Peake set Dobson to copy pictures for him, and exposed the copies for sale in his shop-window. One of these copies was seen by Vandyck in a shop-window on Snow Hill, and having made inquiries for the artist, be found him at work in a poor garret, whence he took him and introduced him to the king. After the death of Vandyck, Charles I. appointed Dobson aergeaotpainter and groom of the privy-chamber, and he accompanied the king to Oxford, where he painted the king, Prince Rupert, and many of the nobility. The Rebellion however and his own extravagance got Dobson Into difficulties, and he was thrown into prison for debt, from which he was released by a Mr. Vaughan, whose portrait ho painted, and ho considered it his beat work in that class. lie did not long enjoy his liberty : he died in London in 1646, aged only thirty-six, and was buried at St Martin's-in-the-Fields.
Dobson painted both portrait and history ; and his portraits are generally considered so excellent, that he has been termed the English Vandyck : his reputation was certainly unrivalled by that of any English portrait painter until the appearance of Sir Joshua Reynolds. There aro several excellent historical pictures by Dobson in various parts of England. There is a 'Beheading of John the Baptist' at
Wilton, in which the head of John is from Prince Rupert; at Blenheim is Francis Carter, an architect and pupil of inigo Jones, with his family, a picture, says Walpole, equal to anything ho bad ever seen by Dobson. Walpole mentions reveral other family pieces, and many portraits with one or more figures, of which he particularly praises one at Drayton, in Northamptonshire, of Henry Mordaunt, earl of Peterborough, io armour, with a page holding his horse and an angel giving him his helmet Walpole eaya further, "Dobson's wife, by him, is on the stairs of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford; and his own head is at Earl Paulett's: the hands were added long since by Gibson, as ho himself told Vertue." He also etched his own portrait Dr. Waagen mentions a few pictures by Dobson which are not noticed by Walpole, all of which he uniformly praises, except in the colouring, which he considers inferior. Considering Dobson's short life and the very unsettled period in which he lived, a great proportion of his works have evidently been preserved, and it is to be regretted that there is not a single specimen of "the English Vandyck" in the British National Gallery. Dobson is said by Dargenville to have been the first artist to adopt the system of requiring half the payment of a portrait at the commencement of it : he did it to reduce the number of his sitters to within a practicable limit (Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting, d.c. ; Waagen, Treasures of Art in England ; D'Argenville, Abr6ge de la Vie des plus famous Point:y.3.)