Sir Thomas Browne

This portraitback to top

A fastidious drawing, apparently a copy from the 1686 engraving by Robert White, but showing eight eight-leaved buttons on the tunic, which shows a straighter overlap. A previous attribution to David Loggan seems first to have been doubted by C. F. Bell who, on reflection, thought Robert White a more likely attribution; [1] Piper, tentatively, agreed.

Footnotesback to top

1) Letter on file from C. F. Bell to J. D. Milner, 19 April 1926.

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, pp 38-39.

Poole and Bell 1926
R. L. Poole & C. F. Bell, Wal. Soc., XIV, 1926, p 67 (as 'officially assigned to David Loggan').

Tildesley 1923
Miriam L. Tildesley, ‘Sir Thomas Browne: His Skull, Portraits, and Ancestry’, Biometrika, XV, 1923, p 19-21, pl.i fig.1 (recording an attribution to David Loggan).

Conservationback to top

Originally drawn as an oval on a rectangular sheet, since considerably reduced at the top. Slightly rubbed, the vellum lightly stained.

Provenanceback to top

Charles Ready of Norwich; Mrs J. T. Scott, Norwich, from whom purchased 1922.

Exhibitionsback to top

The Norwich Achievement; Some famous Citizens, Norwich, 1955; The Orange and the Rose, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1964, no.91 as after Robert White.


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.

View all known portraits for Sir Thomas Browne