Oliver Cromwell

This portraitback to top

Probably after the so-called life mask by Pearce at Chequers Court (K. Pearson & G. K. Morant, ‘Portraiture of Oliver Cromwell’, Biometrica, XXVI, 1935, pls.lxii-lxiv; D. Piper, ‘The contemporary Portraits of Oliver Cromwell’, Wal. Soc., XXIV, 1958, no.13i).

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 94.

Provenanceback to top

Presented anonymously c.1920.<sup>1

1</sup> In 1940 C. K. Adams noted (MS on file) he believed NPG 3087 had been brought to the NPG by Paul Ryan in the early 1920’s when the Director [Milner] ‘put it into a cupboard below the long Board Room book case’. A second MS note records that this cast had been given privately on condition that ‘it is not reproduced or exhibited’.


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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