Unknown man, formerly known as Francis Wheatley

This portraitback to top

NPG 1278 is evidently a self portrait, but a somewhat laboured one, probably the work of an amateur. It was acquired as a portrait of Francis Wheatley [1] and was listed as such until 1981.

Footnotesback to top

1) Illus. as such Magazine of Art, XXV, 1901, p 416; W. Roberts, Wheatley, 1910, front.

Physical descriptionback to top

Brown eyes, brown hair, wearing a black hat with silver trim, a brown coat with a pink collar, and light green waistcoat and breeches.

Provenanceback to top

William Burrough Hill, auctioneer, Southampton,¹ from whom purchased 1900.

¹ Hill alleged (letter of 21 August 1900; NPG archive) that he had bought NPG 1234 ‘about ten years ago’ from an artist who had had it ‘backlined’ and in the course of this operation an inscription was found on the old stretcher ‘Portrait of Wheatley by himself’, but the stretcher was destroyed.


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, National Portrait Gallery, 2004, 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 Francis Wheatley