Charles Howard Hodges was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 painter active in the Netherlands during the French occupation of 18th and early 19th century.

Biography

Charles Howard Hodges had visited Amsterdam in 1788; after a two-year stay in Dublin, he moved with his family to The Hague

The Hague

The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

 in 1792. In Amsterdam, he worked as an artist, specialized in the mezzotint

Mezzotint

Mezzotint is a printmaking process of the intaglio family, technically a drypoint method. It was the first tonal method to be used, enabling half-tones to be produced without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple...

 technique and pastel

Pastel

Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation....

. In 1797, he and his family moved to Amsterdam, where he lived with his teacher Johann Friedrich August Tischbein

Johann Friedrich August Tischbein

Johann Friedrich August Tischbein was a German painter. He was the most notable painter from the second generation of the Tischbein family of portrait painters and was known as the Leipziger Tischbein...

 at the Prinsengracht N° 205. There, he became a famous painter of portraits; he painted over 700 portraits of the rich and famous of that time. He was also an engraver, printer, art dealer and a member of the Amsterdam art club Felix Meritis

Felix Meritis

Felix Meritis is the name of a former society and its building on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. Since 1988 The Felix Meritis Foundation has been located in the building as a European centre for art, culture and science.- Society :...

.

He is well-known for the fact that he painted all the leaders of the Netherlands during the Napoleonic Period, -a turbulent period in Dutch history, since the Netherlands went through 5 different political systems: stadtholder

Stadtholder

A Stadtholder A Stadtholder A Stadtholder (Dutch: stadhouder [], "steward" or "lieutenant", literally place holder, holding someones place, possibly a calque of German Statthalter, French lieutenant, or Middle Latin locum tenens...

 Willem V

William V, Prince of Orange

William V , Prince of Orange-Nassau was the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, and between 1795 and 1806 he led the Government of the Dutch Republic in Exile in London. He was succeeded by his son William I...

 of the Republic of the United Netherlands, Grand Pensionary

Grand Pensionary

The Grand Pensionary was the most important Dutch official during the time of the United Provinces. In theory he was only a civil servant of the Estates of the dominant province among the Seven United Provinces: the county of Holland...

 Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck

Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck

Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck , Lord of Nyenhuis, Peckedam and Gellicum, was a Dutch politician of the Batavian Republic and an investor in the Holland Land Company....

 of the Batavian Republic, King Louis Bonaparte

Louis Bonaparte

Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, Prince Français, Comte de Saint-Leu , King of Holland , was the fifth surviving child and the fourth surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino...

 (King

King

- Centers of population :* King, Ontario, CanadaIn USA:* King, Indiana* King, North Carolina* King, Lincoln County, Wisconsin* King, Waupaca County, Wisconsin* King County, Washington- Moving-image works :Television:...

 of Holland

Kingdom of Holland

The Kingdom of Holland 1806–1810 was set up by Napoleon Bonaparte as a puppet kingdom for his third brother, Louis Bonaparte, in order to better control the Netherlands. The name of the leading province, Holland, was now taken for the whole country...

), Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and king William I of the Netherlands

William I of the Netherlands

William I Frederick, born Willem Frederik Prins van Oranje-Nassau , was a Prince of Orange and the first King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg....

. The only known portrait of Sebald Justinus Brugmans

Sebald Justinus Brugmans

Sebald Justinus Brugmans was a Dutch botanist, physician and professor of natural sciences.Brugmans studied at the University of Groningen, where he earned doctorates in medicine and philosophy, and also a masters degree in liberal arts...

 was made by him. A design for the honorary cross of the Order of the Union

Order of the Union

The Order of the Union was a chivalric order established in 1806 by Louis Napoleon, younger brother of Napoleon I, for the Kingdom of Holland. The order was abolished in 1811 when the French Empire absorbed the Kingdom of Holland...

 was rejected by Louis Bonaparte.

Hodges advised the Dutch government in 1815 with the return of thousands of works of art, which were confiscated by the French in 1795 from several collections, including the Gallery of Prince William V (the first museum open to the public in the Netherlands), and the several collections of the previous stadtholders. Not all the stolen art was returned from Paris, and it is said that several pieces are still held in the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

 up to this day.

Most of the over 700 portraits by Hodges are made in the early 19th century, the earlier works in pastel

Pastel

Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation....

, and later work in oil paint

Oil paint

Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varnish may be added to increase the glossiness of the...

. Several of these portraits can be found in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, in museums and castles and in royal and private collections.

Charles Howard Hodges was father and teacher to James Newman Hodges, een lesser painter who worked in the Rijksmuseum when it was still located in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam.