John Dryden
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- Extended catalogue entry
Later Stuart Portraits Catalogue
John Dryden
by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt
1693
49 in. x 39 3/4 in. (1245 mm x 1010 mm)
NPG 2083
This portraitback to top
The date is taken from Vandergucht’s engraving. Dryden holds the classical insignia of a poet’s laurel wreath (although deprived of the laureateship in 1688). A three-quarter-length version is in the Treasurer’s House, York, and a half-length, formerly NPG 831, [1] was sold to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1925 when NPG 2083 was acquired. What appears to have been a version (‘The poet in this portrait, which is a half-length, wears a large wig, and holds a sprig of laurel in his hand’) belonged to the poet’s descendants, John Driden of Chesterton and the Pigott family, until 1777. [2]
Footnotesback to top
1) Bought from Shepherd Bros. in 1890.
2) E. Malone, Prose Works of John Dryden, I, 1800, p 326; R. Bell, Dryden, English Poets I, 1854, p 97.
Referenceback to top
Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 113.
Stewart 1983
J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, no.243.
Provenanceback to top
The Earls of Darnley, Cobham Hall; purchased from the 8th Earl of Darnley by private treaty, February 1925.1
1 I.e. prior to the Darnley sale, Christie’s, 1 May 1925 (the 8th Earl, Ivo Bligh, devised ‘The Ashes’, the cricket trophy for England and Australia).
Reproductionsback to top
S. Coignard 1702; M. Vandergucht 1709 lettered ANNO.1693. AETAT:62. (for Dryden’s Virgil).
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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