Later Stuart Portraits Catalogue
Matthew Prior (1664-1721), Poet, Ambassador to France and politician; MP for East Grinstead and Chief Secretary for Ireland
- Gallery portraits
- All known portraits
- Biography and References
Poet and diplomat, member of the Kit-Cat Club c.1702-10; St John’s College, Cambridge; BA 1686, MA 1700; secretary at The Hague, 1690-97, and at Paris 1698-99; FRS 1698; MP 1701; under secretary of state 1699-1700; lord of trade 1700-07; plenipotentiary at Paris 1712-13 and unofficial ambassador at Fontainebleau 1713; recalled on the death of Queen Anne and placed under house arrest for a year for compromising peace negotiations with France; published Poems on Several Occasions 1709 with a de-luxe edition 1719 which gained him his independence; a virtuoso collector of books and works of art and a close friend of Edward, Lord Harley, son of the 1st Earl of Oxford, at whose house, Wimpole, he died.
‘very factious in Conversation; a thin hollow-looked Man, turned of forty Years old’ (J. Macky, Characters of the Court of Great Britain, 1733).
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.
‘very factious in Conversation; a thin hollow-looked Man, turned of forty Years old’ (J. Macky, Characters of the Court of Great Britain, 1733).
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.