William Congreve

Inscriptionback to top

Signed and dated, lower left: GKneller/1709 (GK in monogram).

This portraitback to top

The Kit-Cat Club portrait. A fine drawing for the head is in the Witt collection. [1]
Versions are in the National Gallery of Ireland (4336), at Knole, [2] Ickworth (oval), [3] and in the Sterling Library, London University (from Chesterfield House). [4] On 8 August 1723 Congreve wrote to Tonson asking whether he would lend his portrait to his kinsman Colonel Congreve ‘to have a copy’ made, presumably the copy seen in Philip Reinagle’s Mrs Congreve with her Children in the National Gallery of Ireland (676). [5] Other copies were sold Christie’s, 11 April 1980, lot 137, and exhibited by Colnaghi in 1983. [6] Pen and ink copies by Edward Byng sold Sotheby’s, 24 November 1966, lot 54, and in the British Museum. [7]
The portrait was copied by Francis Bird for the Congreve monument in Westminster Abbey (1729), and in an anonymous 18th-century pearwood relief.

Footnotesback to top

1) J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, D40; exhibited Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1971, no.46, and see Connoisseur, CLVI, 1964, pp 195-98.
2) C. J. Phillips, History of the Sackville Family, 1929, II, p 439.
3) See E. Farrer, Portraits in Suffolk Houses (West), 1908, p 202, Ickworth, no.20.
4) D. Piper, ‘The Chesterfield House Literary Portraits’, in R. Wellek & A. Ribeiro eds., Essays in Memory of James Marshall Osborn, 1979, p 191, no.14; from the Halifax sale, 1st day, 6 March 1740, lot 14, bought Chesterfield (G. Vertue, Notebooks, Wal. Soc., XXIV, 1936, p 165, ‘Congreve. by Sr. G.Kneller. the same as is printed’); Harewood sale, Christie’s, 29 June 1951, lot 37.
5) Tonson Papers. Illus. M. Pointon, Hanging the Head, 1993, p 170. Possibly the half-length version sold by Mrs A. E. Congreve, Phillips, 13 December 1994, lot 9.
6) English Ancestors, 1983, no.33.
7) E. Croft-Murray & P. Hulton, British Museum, Catalogue of British Drawings: XVI and XVII centuries, 1960, p 224 (1897.8.13.6; Byng 5:f.8r).

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, pp 80-81.

Stewart 1983
J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, no.173.

Exhibitionsback to top

Art Treasures, Manchester, 1857, British Portrait Gallery 267; Second Special Exhibition of National Portraits ( ... William and Mary to MDCCC), South Kensington, 1867, no.116; Royal House of Guelph, New Gallery, London, 1891, no.226; A British Theatrical Loan Exhibition, Dudley House, London, 1933, no.267; Manners & Morals 1987, no.24; Voltaire et l’Europe, l’hôtel des Monnaies, Paris, 1994–95, no.112.

Reproductionsback to top

J. Smith 1710 (J. Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, 54); J. Faber II 1733 (J. Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, 208/40).


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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