William Dobson was a portraitist and one of the first notable English painters, praised by his contemporary John Aubrey as "the most excellent painter that England has yet bred". Dobson was born in London, the son of a lawyer called William Dobson, he was apprenticed to William Peake and later joined the studio of Francis Cleyn. There is a claim that his father was a decorative artist, but this may be a misreading of the single known quote about Dobson Sr, by the antiquarian John Aubrey. Dobson is believed to have had access to the Royal Collection and to have copied works by Titian and Anthony van Dyck, the court painter of King Charles I of England; the colour and texture of Dobson's work was influenced by Venetian art, but Van Dyck's style had little apparent influence on Dobson. The story that Van Dyck himself discovered Dobson when he noticed one of the young artist's pictures in a London shop window is not supported by any evidence, nor do we know how he gained his introduction to the King, who had Dobson paint himself, his sons and members of the court.

Little is known of Dobson's career in the 1630s, but when Van Dyck died in 1641, the opportunity arose for him to gain royal commissions from King Charles. He is said to have become serjeant painter to the groom of the privy chamber. However, this claim comes from only one as yet unverified source. During the English Civil War Dobson was based at the Royalist centre of Oxford and painted many leading Cavaliers, his portrait of the future Charles II as Prince of Wales at the age of around twelve is a notable baroque composition, his finest work. He painted at least the head of Duke of York, as well as portraits of leading Royalists such as Charles Lucas and John Byron, Prince Rupert of the Rhine and Prince Maurice. Around sixty of Dobson's works survive half-length portraits dating from 1642 or later; the thick impasto of his early work gave way to a mere skim of paint reflecting a wartime scarcity of materials. After Oxford fell to the Parliamentarians, in June 1646, Dobson returned to London.

Now without patronage, he was imprisoned for debt and died in poverty at the age of thirty-five. Ellis Waterhouse described Dobson as "the most distinguished purely British painter before Hogarth", in the view of Waldemar Januszczak he was "the first British born genius, the first dazzling English painter."There are examples of Dobson's work at the National Gallery, the National Gallery of Scotland, Tate Britain, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Maritime Museum, Queen's House in Greenwich, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull, the Courtauld Institute of Art, the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, in several English country houses, at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in New Zealand. The 2011 anniversary of his birth was marked by exhibitions, a'Dobson Trail' listing his paintings on a website, a BBC television profile by Januszczak, The Lost Genius of British Art: William Dobson, he was married twice, first to Elizabeth, whose surname is unknown, as is the date of their marriage.

She was buried in St Martin-in-the-Fields on 26 September 1634. On 18 December 1637 he married Judith Sander. William Dobson's paintings John Aubrey, Brief Lives. Waldemar Januszczak, The first great British painter?, Tate, 17, Spring 1999, p. 62. R. F. Jones, William Dobson: The King's Painter, Tyger's Head Books, 2016 Malcolm Rogers, William Dobson, 1611–46: The Royalists at War, National Portrait Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, 1983. Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Dobson, William". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press. United Kingdom National Portrait Gallery — William Dobson Tate Collection — William Dobson William Dobson 1611-1646, Paintings, Dobson Art Trail 59 paintings by or after William Dobson at the Art UK site

Shunchang County is a county under the administration of Nanping City, in the northwest of Fujian province, People's Republic of China. The county's name was established during the Tang Dynasty, it has a total population of 241,200 people as of the end of 2003. It is the production of coarse bamboo in Fujian. Shunchang County administers one subdistrict, seven towns, four rural townships; the subdistrict is Shuangxi. The towns include Jianxi, Yuankeng, Dali and Renshou; the rural townships include Yangdun, Zhengfang and Gaoyang. Shunchang County has two major brooks and Jinxi, as well as numerous smaller tributaries. Renshou Guandan Hou Yuzhu Zhang Guozheng

Eve and the Fire Horse is a 2005 Canadian film written and directed by Julia Kwan. It won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Claude Jutra Award for the best feature film by a first-time film director in Canada. Eve, a precocious nine-year-old with an overactive imagination, was born in the Year of the Fire Horse, notorious among Chinese families for producing the most troublesome children. Dinners around Eve’s family table are a raucous affair, where old world propriety and new world audacity mix in measure, but as summer approaches, it seems. When her mother chops down their apple tree — a superstitious omen — bad luck worms its way into their family in unexpected, tragic ways. Forced to grow up too fast, Eve learns to take pleasure in life’s small gifts — like a goldfish she believes to be the reincarnated spirit of her beloved grandmother. Meanwhile, Eve’s older sister Karena is going through changes of her own, exploring a newfound fascination with Christianity. Soon, crucifixes pop up next to the Buddha in the family’s house, Eve must contend with a Sunday school class where her wild imagination is distinctly out of place.

Caught between her sister’s quest for premature sainthood and her own sense of right and wrong, Eve faces the challenges of childhood with fanciful humor and wide-eyed wonder. Along the way, she proves that sometimes the most troublesome children are the ones that touch our hearts most deeply. Eve and the Fire Horse on IMDb Eve and the Fire Horse at AllMovie Eve and the Fire Horse at Rotten Tomatoes Erik Paulsson's Red Storm Site