Alexander Cooper (London, 11 December 1609 – Stockholm, 1660) was an English Baroque miniature painter whose work centred on portrait miniatures in watercolour. He is remembered mainly for his service at the Swedish court, though his career also took him through London and The Hague.
Born in London, he was the elder brother of the painter Samuel Cooper and trained with Peter Oliver. He worked in London from 1633 to 1642, then moved to The Hague, where he is recorded as a member of the Guild of Saint Luke between 1644 and 1646. After a short stay in Amsterdam, he went to Sweden in 1646 as court painter to Queen Christina, serving as her miniaturist until she abdicated in 1654. He succeeded David Beck in the official post of court painter.
Two years later he was in Denmark, working on commissions for Christian IV, and in 1657 he was back in Stockholm, where he died in early 1660, aged about fifty. Very few of his works survive. The most important are a series of portraits of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and Elizabeth of Bohemia with their children, which by the late nineteenth century belonged to Wilhelm II of Germany. Other notable portraits were owned by Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and Gustav V of Sweden. According to Houbraken, he was regarded as the finest portrait miniaturist in watercolour of his day. He is probably the same painter as Ioannes Coepers of England, mentioned in Cornelis de Bie's book of painters, Het Gulden Cabinet.
Works (1)
A miniature painted on card by Alexander Cooper in 1650, at a very small scale, showing Elisabeth of the Palatinate looking directly out at the viewer. The record gives no further details about the composition or the commission, so any reading of the portrait has to rest on what the image itself shows: its tiny size demands great precision in the features and the gaze.
Where to see the work
- Rijksmuseum Amsterdam · 1
Teachers and pupils
Studied with
- Peter Oliver 1594–1648