Later Stuart Portraits Catalogue

John Tillotson (1630-1694), Archbishop of Canterbury

See also J. Ingamells, The English Episcopal Portrait 1559-1835, catalogue, 1981, pp 382-86.

c.1664
Painting by Mary Beale, half-length painted oval, brown hair, wearing black gown and bands. St Paul’s Cathedral Library (R. Jeffree, ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, exhibition catalogue, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, p 71, no.128; J. Ingamells, The English Episcopal Portrait 1559-1835, catalogue, 1981, p 382). Probably the portrait for which Tillotson sat to Beale on 19 October 1664 (Samuel Woodforde’s journal, see R. Jeffree, ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, exhibition catalogue, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, p 23). A related drawing by Charles Beale II in the British Museum (G.g.4, w.5-97; E. Croft-Murray & P. Hulton, British Museum, Catalogue of British Drawings: XVI and XVII centuries, 1960, p 186).

c.1670
Painting by Mary Beale, three-quarter-length seated, wearing black gown and bands. Untraced. Engraved J. T. Wedgwood 1820.

Unidentified Tillotson portraits by Beale recorded in the Beale pocket books are a head for Col. Strangways 1672, a three-quarter-length for the Beales themselves 1677, and two further heads 1681 (see R. Jeffree, ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, exhibition catalogue, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, p 23), see also c.1675 and c.1692 below.

1672
Painting by Peter Lely, half-length painted oval, greying hair, wearing black gown and bands. Elton Hall (R. B. Beckett, Lely, 1951, no.535, pl.111). Exhibited Mary Beale, Geffrye Museum, London, 1999-2000, no.15 illus. Engraved A. Blooteling (F. W. H. Hollstein, Dutch & Flemish Etchings Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, 48 illus.), a later state showing Bishop’s robes. In 1672 Lely had painted portraits of Tillotson for the Beales and for Dr Cradock (C. H. Collins Baker, Lely and the Stuart Portrait Painters, 1912, II, p 135).

c.1675
Painting by Mary Beale, three-quarter-length seated as Dean, greying hair, wearing scarf, hood and rochet, inscribed Patriae Lumen/Ecclesiae Decus et Columen …. Canterbury, Deanery (R. Jeffree, ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, exhibition catalogue, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, p 71, no.129; J. Ingamells, The English Episcopal Portrait 1559-1835, catalogue, 1981, p 383). Exhibited ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, no.8. A half-length version in St Peter’s, Sowerby, N. Yorks. (T. Barber, Mary Beale, exhibition catalogue, Geffrye Museum, London, 1999-2000, p 67 as the most sensitive of Mary Beale’s Tillotson portraits).

1679-80
Miniature by Charles Beale II, bust-length, own hair, wearing gown and bands. Royal Collection (G. Reynolds, The sixteenth and seventeenth-century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1999, no.164). Exhibited ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, no.53; G. Reynolds, The sixteenth and seventeenth-century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1999, no.11. Vertue saw a miniature by Charles Beale of Tillotson dated 1680 (G. Vertue, Notebooks, Wal. Soc., XXIV, 1936, p 65). A related drawing by Charles Beale II is in the British Museum (G.g.4 w.5-60; E. Croft-Murray & P. Hulton, British Museum, Catalogue of British Drawings: XVI and XVII centuries, 1960, p 186).

c.1688
Engraving by R. White, bust-length oval to right, in wig, wearing gown and bands (RWhite ad vivu delin: et sculp.). White had engraved the frontispiece for Tillotson’s Sermons 1688.

pre-1691
Pearwood medallion, own hair, wearing gown and bands; Victoria and Albert Museum (A4-1925; illus. D. Bilbey, British Sculpture 1470-2000, a concise catalogue of the collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2002, no.58).

c.1692
Painting by Mary Beale, three-quarter-length seated on an elaborate throne, with grey wig, wearing rochet and chimere. Lincoln’s Inn, London, presented by Sir Charles Fletcher Cooke 1982, from Clumber Park sale, Christie’s, 4 June 1937, lot 50 (R. Jeffree, ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, exhibition catalogue, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, p 71, no.131; J. Ingamells, The English Episcopal Portrait 1559-1835, catalogue, 1981, p 384, illus.). Engraved R. White as half-length oval. A version formerly at Lambeth Palace. The pose resembles that of the Beale portrait of c.1675. R. Jeffree, ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, exhibition catalogue, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, p 71, no.130, lists another[?] portrait of c.1692 then belonging to G. Tillotson.

Miniature by Simon Digby, bust-length to front, wearing rochet and chimere. National Gallery of Ireland (7221). Exhibited Treasures to Hold, Dublin, 2000, no.3. A comparable miniature, called Mary Beale, sold Neale’s, Kedleston Hall, 13 March 2002, lot 102.

Engraving by R. White, bust-length oval to right, in wig, wearing rochet and chimere (RWhite delin. et sculp.).

1694
Painting by Godfrey Kneller, see under NPG 94.

Posthumous
c.1754
Bronzed plaster statuette by John Cheere, sent to Kilnwick Hall in 1754, now untraced (T. Friedman & T. Clifford, The Man at Hyde Park Corner, exhibition catalogue, Temple Newsam, Leeds, and Marble Hill, Twickenham, 1974, no.105).

Marble medallion, bust-length, own hair, wearing rochet and chimere, a plaque supported by weeping putti; St Lawrence Jewry, London.

1796
Monument by Joseph Wilton, whole-length in flowing robes, preaching, left hand on book. St Peter’s, Sowerby, N. Yorks. (illus. M. Whinney, Sculpture in Britain 1530 to 1830, 1964, pl.114a). A half-scale plaster modello in the Huntington Art Collections, San Marino, from Tennant’s, 9 November 1985, lot 315.

History
A painted allegory by G. B. Pittoni, Canaletto and G. B. Cimaroli was one of a series of ‘monuments’ to recent ‘British Worthies, who were bright and shining Ornaments, to their Country’, commissioned by Owen MacSwinny c.1725-29. Three versions were known in 1970: with Peter Moores - the original picture; at Barrington Hall, and (architecture only) with Signora M. A. N. Ciriello (E. Croft-Murray, Decorative Painting in England, II, The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, 1970, p 240, no.4).



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.