Pieter Christoffel Wonder

b. 1780 — d. 1852

After a modest artistic training in his native Utrecht and extensive studies on his own, Pieter Christoffel Wonder attended the Düsseldorf Academy from 1802 through 1804, supplementing his training, as usual, by copying Old Master paintings. In 1807, with Jan Kobell II (1778-1814), Wonder founded an artist's society in Utrecht called Kunstliefde (Love for Art). He remained its director until he left for London in May 1823. Lord and Lady John Murray, who had regularly visited him in Utrecht, convinced Wonder to move to the British capital in anticipation of many commissions. Until then, Wonder painted mainly portraits and genre scenes in a meticulous style carefully rendering various materials. When he finally settled in London in 1824, Wonder made many portraits of the nobility, often depicting them in conversation pieces in the manner of seventeenth-century Dutch painter Gerard ter Borch (1584-1662). Wonder's masterpiece, Sir John Murray's Art Gallery (1830, private collection, Great Britain; related oil sketches, National Portrait Gallery, London; drawing, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam), depicts an imaginary art gallery and portrays some important contemporary British collectors. In 1831 Wonder returned to Utrecht and, according to his pupil and biographer Christiaan Kramm (1797-1875), left his Dutch painting style behind and continued to work in a somewhat antiquated manner.