Robert Feke

John Smibert, The Bermuda Group (Dean Berkeley and His Entourage), begun in 1728, finished 1739. Yale University Art Gallery

Robert Feke was an American portrait painter born in Oyster Bay, New York. According to art historian Richard Saunders, "Feke's impact on the development of Colonial painting was substantial, and his pictures set a new standard by which the work of the next generation of aspiring Colonial artists was judged."

Little is known for certain about his life, particularly his early years. Only one work by Feke, a portrait of a child, is datable before 1741. In that year he moved to Boston, where he painted Isaac Royall and Family (1741), a group portrait which borrows its composition from John Smibert’s The Bermuda Group (1729). The latest record of his activities is August 26, 1751;