Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neve, Cornelius

886636Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 40 — Neve, Cornelius1894Lionel Henry Cust

NEVE, CORNELIUS (fl. 1637–1664), portrait-painter, appears to have been of Netherlandish origin, and may have been a member of the artist family of De Neve at Antwerp. There is a portrait by him at Knole of Richard and Edward Sackville as boys, signed and dated 1637. At Petworth there are two companion pictures, one of an artist with his wife and son, the other of eight children, which are stated to represent Neve and his family, painted by himself. In the Ashmolean collection of portraits at Oxford there is one inscribed ‘Mr. Le Neve, a famous painter,’ apparently Cornelius Neve, and Vertue notes that he drew Ashmole's portrait in 1664. The register of the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, records the marriage on 21 Aug. 1593 of ‘Cornelis de Neve van Ghistele with Elisabeth Goddens van Maseick, widow of Jan Davidts;’ this may be the father of, or perhaps identical with, the painter.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum; information from G. Scharf, C.B., F.S.A.]

L. C.