William Dampier

Inscriptionback to top

Inscribed DAMPIE./VOYAG … /I; signed to right of head: T M.

This portraitback to top

The only known portrait of Dampier, whose identity is secured by the provenance; Sloane knew Dampier, from whom he received shells and some original MSS. [1]
Dampier was in England 1697-98 and the book he holds may be identified as the first volume of his New Voyage Round the World of 1697 (the Supplement appeared in 1699 when he was abroad), the number ‘I’ on the spine anticipating rather than postdating the Voyages and Descriptions. Vol. II, published in 1699.
A copy by Edmund Dyer is in the National Library of Australia, Canberra (ABN83-059193). [2] Two modern copies belonged to Mrs E. O. Cockburn, Dorchester, in 1967; one(?) sold Henry Y. Duke, Dorchester, 19-20 July 1984, lot 72.

Footnotesback to top

1) Sloane’s MS catalogues of exotic birds quoted from Dampier’s New Voyage and Dampier gave Sloane some shells from his second voyage (see A. MacGregor ed., Sir Hans Sloane, 1994, pp 23, 84, 91nn14,15, 108). Sloane’s own portrait was painted by Murray c.1725 (Royal College of Physicians).
2) Cat., 1988, p 35, no.133 as c.1835, but probably by Alfred Edmund Dyer (fl. 1925-55).

Referenceback to top

Ellis 1843
Sir Henry Ellis, List of Portraits suspended on the Walls of the Eastern Zoological Gallery, British Museum, no.89.

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 101.

Provenanceback to top

Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753); bequeathed to the British Museum 1753; transferred to the NPG 1879.

Reproductionsback to top

J. K. Sherwin, completed by C. Sherwin 1787.<sup>1

1</sup> See Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.


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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