Sir John Powell

This portraitback to top

The identification is traditional. The only known image of Powell and a copy from a lost original, probably by John Riley.
Showing Powell in ceremonial dress as judge of the common pleas (1686) or King’s Bench (1687); the style of wig and the apparent age of the sitter would suggest a date in the mid-1680s (as Malcolm Rogers proposed [1]), to mark these appointments.

Footnotesback to top

1) Notes in picture file (NPG).

Referenceback to top

Bain 1868
E. S. Bain, Catalogue of Portraits in Serjeants’ Inn in 1868, 1868, no.8.

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 285 as c.1690-95.

Provenanceback to top

Presented by ‘Mr Ray’ to the Hon. Society of Judges and Serjeants-at-Law 1849 and presented by that body (upon dissolution) to the NPG 1877.

Exhibitionsback to top

Royal Courts of Justice 1958–.


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.