Brook Taylor

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Brook Taylor

probably by Louis Goupy
watercolour and bodycolour on vellum laid down on card, 1720
3 7/8 in. x 3 in. (98 mm x 76 mm)
Purchased, 1921
Primary Collection
NPG 1920

Sitterback to top

  • Brook Taylor (1685-1731), Mathematician. Sitter in 3 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Louis Goupy (circa 1674-1747), Miniature painter. Artist or producer associated with 4 portraits, Sitter in 1 portrait.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Kerslake, John, Early Georgian Portraits, 1977, p. 276
  • Rogers, Malcolm, Master Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery, 1993 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 5 August to 23 October 1994), p. 33
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 604
  • Walker, Richard, Miniatures: 300 Years of the English Miniature, 1998, p. 57 Read entry

    Brook Taylor, another polymath and Fellow of the Royal Society, is shown here informally dressed and holding a copy of his Linear Perspective, poised on a two-manual harpsichord, with in the background a landscape and a miniature portrait, perhaps of his first wife, Miss Brydges. He married her in 1721, the year after his sitting to Louis or Joseph Goupy. The Gallery also owns a large group portrait of Brook Taylor with his brothers and sisters, painted by John Closterman in 1696.

Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1720back to top

Current affairs

Collapse of the South Sea Company's shares causes financial crisis in London and ruins many investors. Their rapid inflation and the speculation mania it had encouraged become known as the South Sea Bubble. Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend returns to the Whig ministry. Robert Walpole 1st Earl of Orford, who had resigned in 1717, also returns and restores public credit in December.

Art and science

Entrepreneur Ralph Allen is appointed to take over the Cross and Bye Posts, which manage mail not going via London, leading to his eventual reform of the entire British postal system.
History painter James Thornhill is appointed Serjeant Painter to the King and becomes the first British artist to receive a knighthood.


International

Treaty of the Hague signed between Britain, France, Austria, the Dutch Republic and Spain ending the War of the Quadruple Alliance.
In Lhasa, the Dalai Lama accepts Chinese imperial protection, which lasts until 1911.
Two political parties emerge in Sweden's parliament and become known as the Hats and the Caps.

Tell us more back to top

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Darren Gowler

20 September 2017, 14:45

The book in the portrait is likely to be Brook Taylor's own "New Principles of Linear Perspective" (1719). The image on the right hand leaf is based upon Figure 23 which appears in the book. However, there is no directly corresponding image between the one on the left hand leaf in the portrait, with the illustrations in Taylor's book. Therefore, the image may be an amalgam of a number of illustrations, perhaps for artistic purposes.

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