Humphrey Wanley

Inscriptionback to top

Inscribed, centre left: HUMFREDUS WANLEY/COVENTRIENSIS/1717.

This portraitback to top

A replica of the slightly larger portrait in the Bodleian Library, given to the University by the 2nd Earl of Oxford in 1740, inscribed, recto: D.D.EDW.COMES OXON & MORTIMER/HUMFREDUS WANLEY COVENTRIENSIS 1717 and verso … Thomas Hill pinxit xxx April A.D.1716 …. [1]
Between 1711 and 1722 Hill painted three portrait types of Wanley. Dr Arthur Charlett, writing to Wanley on 9 May 1720, said of one of them ‘Mr Denison does not think it anyways flatters you; it seems to shew more of the Depth and Sagacity of your Mind than the Features of your Countenance’. [2] By the early 1720s, in consultation with Wanley, Hill was buying antiquities and books on behalf of Edward, Lord Harley (in 1724 2nd Earl of Oxford), and occasionally borrowing manuscripts from the Harley collection. [3]

Footnotesback to top

1) Mrs R. L. Poole, Catalogue of Portraits in the possession of the University, Colleges, City and County of Oxford, I, p 91, no.226; exhibited Second Special Exhibition of National Portraits ( ... William and Mary to MDCCC), South Kensington, 1867, no.133.
2) Quoted by R. W. Goulding, ‘The Welbeck Abbey Miniatures’, Wal. Soc., IV, 1916, under no.252.
3) Wanley diaries, British Museum, MS Lansdowne 771-2.

Referenceback to top

Ellis 1843
Sir Henry Ellis, List of Portraits suspended on the Walls of the Eastern Zoological Gallery, British Museum, no.45.

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 372.

Provenanceback to top

Presented to the British Museum by George Townshend, Earl of Leicester (later 2nd Marquess), 1795; transferred to NPG 1879.

Reproductionsback to top

J. Smith (J. Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, 263; in reverse; … Thomas Hill pinxit Mense Septemb A.D. 1717. J. Smith fec. et ex. 1717/8 …); R. Graves 1819; A. Wivell 1819 (reduced version of Smith’s plate).


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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