Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt

Inscriptionback to top

Signed and dated, lower left: G.Kneller F/1685.

This portraitback to top

Versions include copies from Welbeck, sold Christie’s South Kensington, 6 March 2003, lot 325 with right hand holding brushes, [1] and from Drummond Castle. [2]

Footnotesback to top

1) R. W. Goulding, Catalogue of Pictures belonging to … the Duke of Portland … , C. K. Adams ed., 1936, no.5; exhibited English Ancestors, Colnaghi, 1983, no.27.
2) Exhibited British Self Portraits, Arts Council, 1962, no.9.

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 190.

Scharf 1980
G. Scharf, Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures at Woburn Abbey, 1890, no.208.

Stewart 1983
J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, no.14.

Provenanceback to top

[Richard Mead? ‘Sir Godfrey Kneller, in an oval, when young, by himself’]¹ The Dukes of Bedford, probably acquired by the 5th Duke (1765-1802) as one of the artist’s self portraits acquired for the library at Woburn; Bedford sale, Christie’s, 19 January 1951, lot 118, bought Leggatt for the NPG.

¹ See W. K. Wimsatt, The Portraits of Alexander Pope, 1965, p 30n18. But five oval, youthful self portraits are listed by J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, nos. 13-17.

Reproductionsback to top

I. Beckett 1685 (J. Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, 59).


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.

View all known portraits for Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt