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Nell Gwyn

2 of 431 portraits matching these criteria:

- subject matching 'Nudes and naked figures'
- 'Image on website'

Photograph: © National Portrait Gallery, London

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Nell Gwyn

attributed to Simon Verelst
oil on canvas, circa 1670
36 3/4 in. x 29 1/2 in. (935 mm x 748 mm)
Lent by a private collection, 2012
Primary Collection
NPG L248

On display in Room 6 on Floor 3 at the National Portrait Gallery

Sitterback to top

  • Eleanor ('Nell') Gwyn (1651?-1687), Actress; mistress of Charles II. Sitter associated with 31 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Simon Verelst (1644-circa 1710), Artist. Artist or producer associated with 7 portraits.

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Events of 1670back to top

Current affairs

Charles II mistress, Barbara Villiers, is created Duchess of Cleveland and granted Nonsuch Palace including its sizeable grounds.
Actress and royal mistress, Nell Gwyn, gives birth to Charles II's son, Charles, who would later become, Duke of St. Albans.

Art and science

Tragicomedy, The Forc'd Marriage, by Aphra Behn, staged by the Duke's Company, starts Behn's career as a professional writer. The writer may have been a royalist spy towards the end of the interregnum.
Poet laureate, John Dryden, is made historiographer royal, a post he would hold for nearly 20 years.

International

Terms of a secret treaty between Charles II and Louis XIV are brought by Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans during a visit to Dover; upon England supplying the majority of military power for a war against Holland and Charles's official conversion to Catholicism, France would assist financially.

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