Thomas Hopkins

Inscriptionback to top

Signed and dated, lower left: G Kneller/1715 (GK in monogram).

This portraitback to top

The Kit-Cat Club portrait. Although it is hard to believe that NPG 3212 shows a man in his seventies, [1] his identity seems assured. [2] Kneller had also painted c.1700 Thomas’s nephew, Edward Hopkins (1674/5-1736), Faber’s engraving of the portrait being published with the Kit-Cat series, [3] although Edward was not elected to the Club and his portrait was not apparently owned by Tonson.

Footnotesback to top

1) Although his precise date of birth is not known, Thomas’s elder brother, Richard, died in 1708 aged 68; there were six brothers and two sisters (Commons 1660-1690, II, p 580, Commons 1690-1715, IV, p 389).
2) E.g. concerning his election to the Kit-Cat Club in 1708, Erasmus Lewis described him to Robert Harley as ‘Tom Hopkins’ (HMC Portland, IV, 1897, p 493); Faber’s plate is titled Thomas Hopkins.
3) Faber’s plates for both Thomas and Edward display the arms of Hopkins of Oving House, Bucks., and Coventry, and of Tidmarsh House, Berks.: sa. on a chev. betw. three pistols or, as many roses gu.

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 171.

Stewart 1983
J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, no.362.

Exhibitionsback to top

Beningbrough 1978–.

Reproductionsback to top

J. Faber II 1732 (J. Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, 208/41).


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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