Isaac Fuller

Isaac Fuller (1606 (?) – 1672) was an English painter. Trained in France, he worked in Oxford and London. His works included portraits, religious subjects and decorative paintings.

Early life and education

Fuller is often said to have been born in 1606, but may have been born as late as 1620. According to Bainbrigg Buckeridge, writing at the beginning of the 18th century, he studied under the French Baroque painter François Perrier in Paris.

Work in Oxford During the earlier part of the 1660s Fuller decorated the chapels of Magdalen and All Souls Colleges at Oxford. His work at Magdalen representing the Resurrection is lost, but a print survives, showing a complex and ambitious composition derived ultimately from Michelangelo. At All Souls he painted a fresco of The Last Judgement, which is also lost, although some additional panels by Fuller, originally fitted between the roof-trusses in the chancel, survive. John Evelyn said that the fresco would not last long, being "too full of nakeds". He also painted an altarpiece for the chapel at Wadham College, using an unusual technique in which the image was drawn on grey cloth in brown and white crayons, and then ironed into the fabric. Joseph Addison wrote a poem in praise of it. There is a portrait of Fuller, drawn by George Vertue, in the collection of the British Museum.

Escape of Charles II after the Battle of Worcester

Fuller painted five large pictures on wood, representing the escape of Charles II after the Battle of Worcester.

The paintings were presented to the Parliament of Ireland and subsequently discovered in a state of neglect by Lord Clanbrassil, who had them repaired, and moved them to Tullamore Park, County Down.

Etchings Fuller made some etchings, including some plates of Tritons and mythological subjects in the style of François Perrier. In 1654 he published a set of etchings entitled Un libro di designare. In Thomas Fuller's Pisgah-sight of Palestine there is a large folding plate of Jewish costumes, etched by Isaac Fuller. He may also have executed the plan of Jerusalem in the same book, on which the words Fuller's Field are written in English.

Death Fuller died in Bloomsbury Square, London, on 17 July 1672.

Isaac Fuller the Younger He left a son, who, according to George Vertue worked mostly as a coach-painter. With Henry Cooke and others he executed the etchings in the edition of Cæsar Ripa's Iconologia published by Pierce Tempest.