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Queen Anne; William, Duke of Gloucester

1 of 32 portraits of William, Duke of Gloucester

Queen Anne; William, Duke of Gloucester, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt, based on a work of circa 1694 -NPG 5227 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Later Stuart Portraits Catalogue

Queen Anne; William, Duke of Gloucester

studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt
based on a work of circa 1694
49 1/4 in. x 40 1/4 in. (1251 mm x 1022 mm)
NPG 5227

Inscriptionback to top

The lining canvas inscribed: No3/Queen.anne,/and ye Duke of Gloucester/a present from her Majesty./to/Secretary Vernon./heirloom; a printed label, verso, inscribed: Dashwood Heirloom No 10.

This portraitback to top

The Duke of Gloucester (1689-1700) was breeched in Easter 1694, which provides a postquam. [1]
Both NPG 5227 and NPG 325 are early derivations from the Kneller pattern best seen at Althorp. [2] Queen Anne had at Kensington in 1697 The Queen and Duke of Gloucester at 1/2 length, no longer in the Royal Collection, the 1697 inventory being annotated: given to Monsr Pless [doubtless Prince George’s Danish confidant Christian Siegfried Plessen] & carried into Denmark But Mr Hook says it is att Sr Godfrey Knellers to be copyed for Mr Pless. [3] A version at Hampton Court, Hereford, listed in 1784 as a copy after Kneller by Claret. [4] Other versions were in a private collection in Wurzburg in 1894, in the Tollemache sale, Christie’s, 15 May 1953, lot 132, and sold Phillips, 21 January 1992, lot 34. [5] See also NPG 325.
A miniature copy of the Queen’s head by H. P. Bone dated 1844 sold Sotheby’s, 29 March 1976, lot 10.

Footnotesback to top

1) M. R. Toynbee, Notes and Queries, 1947, p 271.
2) J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, no.44a; K. J. Garlick, ‘A Catalogue of Pictures at Althorp’, Wal. Soc., XLV, 1976, no.341, pl.14. Kneller used a closely comparable pose in his Mary, Duchess of Ormond, and her son engraved by J. Smith in 1693.
3) O. Millar, The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1963, pp 141-42.
4) With Lord Malden (Sir William Musgrave, MS lists of portraits, British Museum, 6391, f.71v, no.3).
5) A further version listed with Lord Sheffield at Sheffield Hall in 1804 (G. P. Harding, List of Portraits, Pictures in Various Mansions of the United Kingdom, I, p 15). A portrait by Kneller at Hardwick Hall was previously supposed to show Queen Anne and the Duke of Gloucester. The figure of Anne alone, depicted as Queen with the sceptre in her left hand and her crown to the left, is at Willey Park.

Referenceback to top

Farrer 1921
E. Farrer, Portraits in Suffolk Houses (East), 1921, pp 154-55, no.2 (at Wherstead Park in 1907).

Simon & Saywell (eds.) 2004
Complete Illustrated Catalogue, NPG, ed. J. Simon & D. Saywell, 2004, p 14.

Provenanceback to top

James Vernon (1646-1727); by descent to his granddaughter Arethusa Vernon (d. 1860) who married Sir Robert Harland (1765-1848) of Wherstead Park, Suffolk; Charles Edmund Dashwood (1857-1935);1 his niece Mrs I. H. Wilson, by whom bequeathed 1978 (see also Vernon NPG 5226 and Gloucester NPG 5228).

1 Who sold a number of pictures from Wherstead at Christie’s, 26 June 1914, lots 89-115 (The Dashwood Heirlooms, removed from Wherstead Park ... sold by direction of Charles E. Dashwood, with the consent of his Trustee and of the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice) and Sotheby’s, 11 December 1929, lots 63-66; Mrs Wilson sold others at Sotheby’s, 27 July 1938, lots 129-45.

Exhibitionsback to top

Government loan, Geneva, 1980–87.


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.

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