Nathaniel Hooke

Inscriptionback to top

Signed on the masonry, bottom left: B Dandridge Pinxit, the 'B' and the 'D' joined.

This portraitback to top

Identification rests on provenance. NPG 68 was not dated or engraved.

Physical descriptionback to top

Dark brown eyes, full lips, cleft chin, grey wig falling behind his back; wine-red coat, open, with gold lace buttonholes in pairs, white neck-band, shirt ruffle and wrist ruffles, blue drapery folded over his right arm and encircling the body; two books, unlettered, one upright on which he rests his right hand, on a masonry table; plain brown background, darker on the left, a pillar, right; lit from the left.

Conservationback to top

The face slightly rubbed, small retouchings and losses in the varnish up the left edge; surface cleaned, lined (twice), restored and varnished between 1859 and 1902; a small puncture in the drapery, lower left, repaired in 1887.

Provenanceback to top

Presented, 1859, by George 4th Baron Boston whose grandfather, Frederick, the 2nd Baron (1749-1825), a personal friend of Hooke, erected the tablet to him in Hedsor church in 1801. According to a letter of 26 July 1858 from Lord Boston to Disraeli, a Trustee of the NPG, the portrait was bequeathed to the 2nd Lord Boston 'as a mark of regard'. [1]

1) NPG archives.

Exhibitionsback to top

Second Exhibition of National Portraits, South Kensington, 1867 (405).


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1977, 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.

View all known portraits for Nathaniel Hooke