David Bates

(British, 1840–1921)

David Bates was a British painter known for his depictions of landscapes around Scotland, Wales, Switzerland, and Egypt. His style show the influence of the celebrated Victorian landscape painter Benjamin Williams Leader. Born in 1840 in Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, he spent most of his early life in Worcestershire, where he was apprenticed at the Royal Worcester Porcelain Works. During his time as a porcelain painter, Bates produced gilded jardinières decorated with delicate flowers and foliage. He left the factory in 1880 to concentrate on landscape painting in both oil and watercolor. Bates went on to exhibit at the Royal Academy, where one of his works was purchased by the president of the academy Lord Frederick Leighton. The artist died in 1921 in the United Kingdom.