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Quick Facts
Biography
Jeremiah Meyer RA (born Jeremias Majer; 1735–1789) was an 18th-century English miniature painter. He was Painter in Miniatures and Enamels to King George III. He was one of the founder members of the Royal Academy.
Life
Meyer was born in Tübingen as a son of the German painter Wolfgang Dietrich Majer. In 1750, at the age of fifteen he was brought to England by his father. In 1757–8, Meyer studied enamel painting with Christian Friedrich Zincke. He may also have spent time at Hogarth's St Martin's Lane Academy. He was a founder member of the Royal Academy in 1769.
He worked in both enamel and watercolour. In 1764 he was appointed miniature painter to Queen Charlotte, and painter in enamel to George III. In 1761 he had been awarded a gold medal by the Society of Artists for a portrait of the king in profile, drawn from memory, and in the same year the king gave Charlotte a miniature of himself by Meyer, set in an oval of diamonds within a pearl bracelet, as an engagement present. His name has often been associated with head of the king used on coinage. It is not certain that his work was used on coins minted in Britain, but his profile of George III was used on a pistole of 1767 for the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg.
Meyer was naturalised in 1762. He retired to Kew and died there in 1789. He is buried in St Anne's Church, Kew.