Balthazar Nebot

Balthazar or Balthasar Nebot, was a painter active in England between 1729 and 1765.

Life

Nebot is first recorded in London in 1729–30. He is generally assumed to have been of Spanish birth or descent, but the details of his life are obscure.

He was a painter of urban scenes and topographical landscapes, whose paintings of markets are considered to be close in style to those of the Dutch painter Peter Angelis who had also worked in Covent Garden. He painted several versions of a picture of the Piazza at Covent Garden, seen from the south-east: one of these, now in the collection of the Tate Gallery is dated 1737. Nebot also made an etching of "Foolish Sam", a mentally handicapped man well known in Leicester Fields.

In the 1730s he painted a set of eight scenes recording the new formal gardens at Hartwell House, Buckinghamshire, for Sir Thomas Lee (1687–1749). A unique record of a country estate and garden of the period, they include detailed depictions of the Lee family, their guests and employees. They are now in the collection of the Buckinghamshire County Museum.

In 1741 he painted a portrait of Thomas Coram, the founder of the Foundling Hospital, who is shown coming across an abandoned baby in a basket by the roadside, with the hospital in the background. Engravings after it were made in 1751 and 1817. Nesbitt was one of the governors of the Foundling Hospital, and is recorded as the owner of Nebot's portrait of Thomas Coram on the engraving of 1751.

He painted fourteen views of Studley Royal and Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, one of which is dated 1762.