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Oliver Cromwell

8 of 224 portraits of Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell, by Peter Blondeau; Thomas Simon, 1656 -NPG 4068 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Early Stuart Portraits Catalogue

Oliver Cromwell

by Peter Blondeau, after an original by Thomas Simon
1656
1 1/8 in. (28 mm) diameter
NPG 4068

Inscriptionback to top

Inscribed THOMAS SIMON 1653.

This portraitback to top

The Cromwellian twenty shilling piece. Coining began about January 1657, but was almost certainly not put into general circulation. [1]

Footnotesback to top

1) See, for example, D. Piper, ‘The contemporary Portraits of Oliver Cromwell’, Wal. Soc., XXIV, 1958, pp 35, 40; P. Gaunt, Oliver Cromwell, 2004, p 101.

Referenceback to top

Henfrey 1877
H. W. Henfrey, Numismata Cromwelliana, 1877, pp 105-06.

Piper 1958
D. Piper, ‘The contemporary Portraits of Oliver Cromwell’, Wal. Soc., XXIV, 1958, no.10.

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 98.

Physical descriptionback to top

Obverse: laureate profile inscribed: OLIVAR D.GR P.ANG.SCO.ET HIB & PRO.
Reverse: Protector Cromwell’s arms: 1) & 4) cross of St George, for England 2) a cross saltire, for Scotland 3) a harp, for Ireland; overall, on an escutcheon, a lion rampant, the paternal arms of Cromwell, surmounted by an imperial crown; inscribed around PAX QUAERITUR.BELLO: (Cromwell’s favourite motto).

Provenanceback to top

A. H. Baldwin, London, from whom purchased 1958.


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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