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William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brouncker

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William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brouncker

possibly after Sir Peter Lely
oil on canvas, circa 1674, based on a work of circa 1674
49 1/4 in. x 40 in. (1251 mm x 1016 mm)
Purchased, 1910
Primary Collection
NPG 1567

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), Portrait painter. Artist associated with 843 portraits, Sitter in 19 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Brouncker was the most eminent of the leaders of Whitehall society who gave science a certain social standing at the court of Charles II. In all his activities he showed himself to be a gifted amateur but in none did he quite reach the first rank. He was a vigorous founder member of the Royal Society and its first President (1662-77). In addition to his defence of the national honour in trials of skill with the mathematicians of France, Brouncker is now chiefly remembered for expressing the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference as a continued fraction. In this portrait he points to a piece of paper which bears a mathematical diagram.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Ollard, Richard, Character Sketches: Samuel Pepys and His Circle, 2000, p. 20
  • Ollard, Richard, Pepys and his Contemporaries, 2015, p. 31
  • Piper, David, Catalogue of Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, 1625-1714, 1963, p. 35
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 81

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1674back to top

Current affairs

Political society, the Green Ribbon Club, begins meeting. Initially composed of disaffected lawyers and republicans, the club opposed what it believed was a gradual shift towards a pro-Catholic government under Charles II. Political economist, Slingsby Bethel is an early member.

Art and science

Revision of John Dryden and William Davenant's adaptation of William Shakespeare's, The Tempest, into a semi-opera is probably accomplished by playwright, Thomas Shadwell. The adaptation popularised operatic entertainment. Shadwell's subsequent dramatic musical score for his play Psyche (1675), became the first to be published in England.

International

Lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne, argues for a separate peace deal with Holland as concerns grow in Parliament over England's alliance with France in the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Refused further funds for the war, Charles II signs the Treaty of Westminster ending English participation in the conflict.

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