Background
David Dalhoff Neal was born on October 20, 1838 in Lowell, Massachussets, United States. He was the son of Stephen B. and Mary (Dalhoff) Neal, was of Dutch descent.
David Dalhoff Neal was born on October 20, 1838 in Lowell, Massachussets, United States. He was the son of Stephen B. and Mary (Dalhoff) Neal, was of Dutch descent.
His early education was received in the Lowell grammar schools, the Lawrence high school, and a private academy at Andover, New Hampshire. He went to Munich and entered the Bavarian Royal Academy, where became a pupil of Max Emanuel Ainmiller, best known as a painter on glass.
Before coming of age he went to New Orleans, and thence via the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco, where he found employment in making drawings on wood and painting an occasional portrait, though his artistic training had been of a very elementary character.
In 1861 a rich Californian, S. P. Dewey, convinced that Neal had unusual talent and needed only the right sort of training to achieve fame as an artist, offered to supply him with sufficient money to take him to Europe and support him there for several years.
In 1869 Neal entered the atelier of Karl von Piloty, the historical painter, with whom he remained until 1876. He now began to devote himself wholly to figure painting.
The subject of his first historical painting was "The First Meeting of Mary Stuart and Rizzio. " The leading critics of the time were enthusiastic. Dr. Foerster wrote in the Wartburg of Munich that the scene was excellently conceived and represented in a most masterly manner; the critic of the Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst (1878) was equally emphatic in his praise.
Neal lived many years in Munich. Before coming under the influence of Piloty he had painted several interiors, including the "Chapel of the Kings, Westminster Abbey, " and a "St. Mark's, Venice, " both of which were exhibited at the Munich international exposition of 1869 and later at the National Academy in New York. Following the success of the "Mary Stuart and Rizzio" he produced his important picture of "Oliver Cromwell of Ely Visiting Mr. John Milton, " which was shown in Munich, Vienna, Boston, and many other cities. It shows Cromwell when he was but a simple farmer and Milton in the full vigor of his youth, and has undeniable human interest. In execution it is typical of the Munich school of the nineteenth century, with bravura in the brushwork, and a heavy color scheme.
Another large historical canvas, "James Watt, " which was exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, became the property of Sir Benjamin S. Phillips, a former lord mayor of the City of London.
In 1884 an exhibition of Neal's pictures was held at the galleries of Noyes & Blakeslee in Boston. The later years of the artist's life were for the most part devoted to portrait painting. Among his subjects were Whitelaw Reid, Mark Hopkins, D. O. Mills, William Henry Green, Adolph Sutro, and Judge Ogden Hoffman of California. He now divided his time between Europe and America, but Munich continued to be his home and he died there in 1915.
On December 9, 1862 he married Marie Ainmiller. She died September 29, 1897.