Thomas Hawker

For the British Army officer of the 1830s-1850s, see Thomas Hawker (British Army officer).

Thomas Hawker (died 1699 or c.1722) was an English portrait painter.

Portrait of Charles II of England
Attributed to Thomas Hawker
Circa 1680 (226 7 x 135.6 cm)
National Portrait Gallery, London

There is little clear historical information about Hawker. George Vertue recorded that Hawker moved into Sir Peter Lely's house after the latter's death in 1680, in the hope of benefiting from the famous associations of the address.^[1] More recently, Ellis Waterhouse suggested that Hawker had been one of Lely's chief assistants.^[2]

A full-length portrait of Charles II, believed to be by Hawker, is in the National Portrait Gallery in London. The attribution was made on the basis of comparisons with Hawker's full-length depiction of the king's son, Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton, at Euston Hall.^[3] The painting of Grafton was reproduced in a mezzotint by Isaac Beckett and his portrait of Titus Oates was engraved by Cornelius Nicolas Schurtz^[4]

The date of his death has often been given as c.1722, on the basis of Vertue's reference to a painter called Edward Hawker, who was still alive, aged over 80, in 1721.^[1] Waterhouse. however, believes that there is no reason to equate Edward and Thomas, and that the artist is more likely to have been the Thomas Hawker who was buried at Covent Garden on 5 November 1699.^[2]