William Peters (painter)

Matthew William Peters (1742 – 20 March 1814) was an English portrait and genre painter who later became an Anglican clergyman and chaplain to George IV.

The family moved from England to Dublin when Peters was young, where his father "advised on the improvement of loughs and rivers for navigation".

He also probably traveled to Paris in 1783–84, where he met Léopold Boilly, Antoine Vestier, and was influenced by the work of Jean-Baptiste Greuze.

[1] According to Robin Simon's article in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "no British contemporary had such an Italian manner of painting as Peters, reflecting the old masters he copied".

He became prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral in 1795, first with the stall of St Mary, Crackpool, but later with the better position of Langford Ecclesia, Oxfordshire.

[1][2] During these years, Peters also painted religious works, including a ten-by-five foot Annunciation for Lincoln Cathedral and The Resurrection of a Pious Family.