Francis Godolphin, 2nd Earl of Godolphin

This portraitback to top

Received with an attribution to Richardson but, as Piper first indicated, NPG 889 appears to be nearer a Van Loo pattern. A bust-length portrait of Godolphin belonging to the Duke of Leeds at North Mimms was listed in 1796 as after Van Loo, [1] and a much reduced version of NPG 889 said to be from Hornby Castle now belongs to the Jockey Club; [2] another, also said to be from Hornby Castle, was with S. E. Schofield in 1977. [3]

Footnotesback to top

1) Sir William Musgrave, MS lists of portraits, British Museum, 6391, f.255, no.17: ‘a Head of Francis (2d) Earl of Godolphin/a copy from Vanloe’; see also A. Meyer, Wal. Soc., LIV, 1991, p 474.
2) Historical and Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures belonging to the Duke of Leeds, 1902, no.386. Correspondence on file.
3) Presumably ibid., no.131, the NPG copy of the catalogue annotated ‘same as NPG’.

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 143.

Provenanceback to top

Presented by the 4th Earl of Chichester 1892.<sup>1

1</sup> Who wrote to Scharf, 20 March 1892, saying he had ‘brought up’ the portrait and wanted the NPG to take it as a present (NPG archive). His grandmother was the daughter of Francis Godolphin Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds.


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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