Robert Bateman

Who was Robert Bateman?

Robert Bateman was an English painter and horticultural designer.

He was the third son of James Bateman, the accomplished horticulturist and landowner, who built Biddulph Grange and its gardens, in Staffordshire.

Robert attended the Royal Academy schools in the 1860s, and from about 1870 he was the leader of a group of artists inspired by the art of Edward Burne-Jones.

His key paintings are The Dead Knight and The Pool of Bethesda. Walter Crane, in his An Artist's Reminiscences, described Bateman's painting as of.... "a magic world of romance and pictured poetry a twilight world of dark mysterious woodlands, haunted streams, meads of deep green starred with burning flowers, veiled in a dim and mystic light."

The Pool of Bethesda is at the Yale Centre of British Art. The Dead Knight is in a private collection, but there is a fine large color reproduction in the book The Last Romantics.

Robert married the daughter of the Dean of Lichfield in 1883, and became a wealthy owner of property and land. His fortune led him to become a noted philanthropist of the time. He and his wife Caroline lived near Much Wenlock, Shropshire, at the 16th-Century Benthall Hall; now a National Trust property.