Francis Godolphin, 2nd Earl of Godolphin

Inscriptionback to top

Signed, lower left: G.Kneller f:.

This portraitback to top

The Kit-Cat Club portrait. A signed half-length painted oval version, sold Sotheby’s, 3 April 1996, lot 35, is dated, verso, 1714. [1] A drawing of this type by Byng is in the British Museum [2] and another is in the Ashmolean Museum. [3]

Footnotesback to top

1) J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, no.305; descended from John Evelyn, Godolphin’s tutor; it belonged for sometime to the La Salle University Art Museum.
2) E. Croft-Murray & P. Hulton, British Museum, Catalogue of British Drawings: XVI and XVII centuries, 1960, p 237 (1897.8.13.7; Byng 6:f.13v).
3) D. B. Brown, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings, IV, The Earlier British Drawings, 1982, no.240.

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 143 as c.1710.

Stewart 1983
J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, no.304 as c.1712.

Exhibitionsback to top

Royal House of Guelph, New Gallery, London, 1891, no.24; Manners & Morals, Hogarth and British Painting 1700–1760, Tate Gallery, 1987, no.25; Beningbrough 1979–2005.

Reproductionsback to top

G. White after 1715 (J. Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, 18); J. Faber II 1732 (J. Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, 208/18).


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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