Richard Bentley

Inscriptionback to top

Inscribed bottom left: Richardus Bentleius AEt:48. 1710.

This portraitback to top

A somewhat crude copy of the only contemporary portrait of Bentley, by Thornhill in Trinity College, Cambridge (the inscription is copied verbatim). [1] A half-length copy is in St John’s College, Cambridge, and a pencil copy of the head by Downman 1777 is in the Fitzwilliam Museum (1951:series II, vol.v, 29).

Footnotesback to top

1) Illus. Connoisseur, CXL, 1957, p 235; bequeathed by the sitter (A. T. Bartholomew, Bentley, a Bibliography, 1908, no.2); exhibited Second Special Exhibition of National Portraits ( ... William and Mary to MDCCC), South Kensington, 1867, no.180; Royal House of Guelph, New Gallery, London, 1891, no.224; first engraved G. Vertue 1712 (D. Alexander, ‘George Vertue as an Engraver’, Wal. Soc., LXX, 2008, no.84) and several times thereafter (A. T. Bartholomew, Bentley, a Bibliography, 1908, nos.7-11). A wash drawing attributed to G. P. Harding in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven CT (B1977.14.9792) is a bust-length copy (see P. J. Noon, English Portrait Drawings & Miniatures, Yale Center for British Art, 1979, p 122, no.142, before full identification made by Noon in 1980).

Referenceback to top

Bartholomew 1908
A. T. Bartholomew, Bentley, a Bibliography, 1908, no.3.

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 26.

Provenanceback to top

Mrs Frances Marshall, née Bridges, Cambridge,¹ from whom purchased through Colnaghi 1890.

¹ Writer (d. 1920). In offering the portrait to Scharf she had recommended her forthcoming novel, A Fellow of Trinity, 1891 (once described as ‘a worse book than most of Marie Corelli’s’; G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology, 1940); had the ageing Scharf read it he may not have wished to complete the purchase.

Exhibitionsback to top

Tercentenary Exhibition, Royal Society, Burlington House, 1960.


This extended catalogue entry is from the National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Later Stuart Portraits 1685–1714, National Portrait Gallery, 2009, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

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