Sir William Temple, Bt

Inscriptionback to top

Signed on stone ledge, lower right: CNetscher 1675.<sup>1

1</sup> The initial of the monogram previously read as G; there is some ambiguity.

This portraitback to top

Temple had presumably met Netscher in The Hague; according to Zincke he had ‘recommended Netscher to the Court of King Charles 2d about 1668 on his return from Holland but he stayd not long here’. [1] It appears that Temple owned (and had probably commissioned), at least four family portraits from Netscher. [2]
The identity is confirmed by the close similarity to the engraved Lely portrait, see NPG 152. [3] NPG 3812 is not a pendant to NPG 3813 (see Dorothy Temple), being painted four years later and slightly larger. The pendant was plausibly identified as lot 65 in the Moor Park 1824 sale, ‘Miss Diana Temple [1665-1679, Sir William’s niece], presenting a salver of Fruits to Lady Giffard [1638-1722] Sir William’s sister’, which is the same size and date. [4]
A copy from Spixworth Park, made by a Mrs Weatherell in 1784, remained at Broadlands. [5]

Footnotesback to top

1) G. Vertue, Notebooks, Wal. Soc., XX, 1932, p 53.
2) I.e. apart from NPG 3812 and 3813, his sister Lady Giffard with his daughter Diana (see note 4 below), and his younger brother Sir John Temple (see note 3 below).
3) A second Netscher portrait identified as Sir William Temple in family inventories probably shows his younger brother Sir John (M. E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher, 2002, no.109); an example of this type appeared in the Northwick Park sale, Christie’s, 25 February 1965, lot 4, see Dorothy Temple, NPG 3813.
4) Christie’s, 30 March 1824, lot 65, bought Seguier for the 2nd Viscount Palmerston at Broadlands; thence by descent (M. E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher, 2002, no.143).
5) Examined in 1907/08 in the NPG (MS Descriptions of Portraits, IX, no.8) when Mrs Weatherell’s name and the date were read on the verso. Spixworth Park sale, 19 March 1912, lot 195, bought Cubitt of Norwich (Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, Portraits in Norfolk Houses, II, p 318, no.61 as by Netscher). Letter from Mrs Georgina Blois, 7 October 1957 (NPG archive) recorded it at Classiebawn (the Irish home of the Mountbattens) in 1957.

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 341.

Wieseman 2002
M. E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher, 2002, no.142.

Provenanceback to top

Temple collection, Moor Park; sale, Christie’s, 30 March 1824, lot 65, bought Seguier for the 2nd Viscount Palmerston at Broadlands; by descent to Countess Mountbatten, from whom purchased 1951.

Exhibitionsback to top

British Institution 1844, no.74 lent Palmerston; Admiral de Ruyter, Rijksmuseum, 1957; Blest Retreats, Richmond upon Thames, 1984, no.179; Glorieuze Revolutie, Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, 1988, no.148.


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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