Elias Ashmole

This portraitback to top

Ashmole wears the gold medal presented to him in 1674 by the King of Denmark in gratitude for The Institution, Laws and Ceremonies of the ... Garter of 1672. [1]
NPG 1602 is an early 19th-century copy of one of the two Riley portraits in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (A 316b), which is inscribed Aet 73/1689, [2] and is presumed to have been the portrait first noted by Ashmole on 14 September 1687, ‘I sat for a second Picture to Mr:Ryley’. [3]
A version was with D. Minlore in 1937 and a second copy is in the Freemasons’ Hall, London. [4]

Footnotesback to top

1) As identified, for example, by C. H. Josten, Elias Ashmole, Biographical Introduction and Texts, 1966, IV, p 1842n8.
2) Mrs R. L. Poole, Catalogue of Portraits in the possession of the University, Colleges, City and County of Oxford, I, p 184, no.448; there is no provenance before 1907 when it was presented by T. Whitcombe-Greene.
3) C. H. Josten, Elias Ashmole, Biographical Introduction and Texts, 1966, IV, p 1842.
4) Illus. Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, 79, 1966, p 43.

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 17.

Conservationback to top

Retouchings in drying cracks; discoloured varnish.

Provenanceback to top

T. Cubitt (dealer), London, from whom purchased 1911.

Exhibitionsback to top

Tercentenary Loan Exhibition, Royal Society, Burlington House, 1960.


This extended catalogue entry is by John Ingamells, one of a limited number of entries drafted in 2010 for the incomplete catalogue, Early Stuart Portraits 1625-1685, and is as written 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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