Later Stuart Portraits Catalogue
Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin (1645-1712), Financier
- Gallery portraits
- All known portraits
- Biography and References
Politician and courtier, whose financial and administrative ability largely sustained British efforts in the French wars; MP 1668, 1679, 1681; groom of the bedchamber 1670-78; envoy extraordinary to Louis XIV 1672, and to the Spanish Netherlands and William of Orange 1678; secretary of state (south) 1684; created Baron Godolphin 1684; lord chamberlain to the Queen 1685-88; lord of the treasury 1679, 1690-96, 1700-01; lord treasurer 1702-10; KG 1704; created Earl of Godolphin 1706.
‘of slow Speech, an awful, serious deportment … of a low Stature; thin, with a very black and stern Countenance. Near Sixty Years old’ (J. Macky, Characters of the Court of Great Britain, 1733).
‘short in stature, with brown eyes imbedded in a dark face chiselled with pock marks’ (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.
‘of slow Speech, an awful, serious deportment … of a low Stature; thin, with a very black and stern Countenance. Near Sixty Years old’ (J. Macky, Characters of the Court of Great Britain, 1733).
‘short in stature, with brown eyes imbedded in a dark face chiselled with pock marks’ (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.