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Sir Edward Seymour, 4th Bt

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Sir Edward Seymour, 4th Bt, by Unknown artist, based on a work of circa 1679 -NPG 5317 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Later Stuart Portraits Catalogue

Sir Edward Seymour, 4th Bt

by Unknown artist
based on a work of circa 1679
50 1/8 in. x 40 1/4 in. (1273 mm x 1022 mm)
NPG 5317

Inscriptionback to top

The paper in his hand lettered: 31.Car.2.c.c.2/An Act for the better Securing the Liberty of the Subjects &/for preventing of Imprisonment beyond the Seas.

This portraitback to top

Seymour wears the Speaker’s gown and in his hand is a text from the Habeas Corpus Amendment Act of 1679. [1] Sold in 1945 as by Mary Beale, an unacceptable attribution.
The original is an unattributed whole-length at Bignor Park, [2] a copy of which, by John Lonsdale, was presented to the Speaker’s House, Westminster, by the Duke of Somerset in 1803. [3] A watercolour copy of the Lonsdale is in the NPG (D23270). [4] A slightly reduced version of the whole-length was sold Lawrence, Wincanton, 20 June 1998, lot 46 (as by a follower of Kneller). A bust-length version, without hands, is in the Adelaide Art Gallery (0.757) as school of Lely. [5]
A comparable three-quarter-length of higher quality, the face identical but with different frogging on the black gown and holding a rolled document in his right hand, was with S. Bright, Reading PA, in 1930.

Footnotesback to top

1) 'Every Englishman, though he laughs at [Seymour’s] peculiarities, must love his virtues; and venerate the man to whom we are principally indebted for the Habeas Corpus Act’ (M. Noble, Continuation of Granger’s Biographical History of England, II, 1806, p 170); see also Encyclopaedia Britannica, XII, 1910, pp 784-85.
2) Duke of Somerset sale, from Stover, Christie’s, 28 June 1890, lot 16; East Knoyle sale, 19 January 1945, lot 21 (illus., very poorly, H. St Maur, Annals of the Seymours, 1902, f.p.293).
3) Government Art Collection (193/7); illus. A. I. Dasent, The Speakers of the House of Commons, 1911, f.p.224.
4) In an early 19th-century album of watercolour copies of portraits from the Speaker’s House, Speakers of the House of Commons, n.d, pl.38. The text of the document in Seymour’s hand is clearly transcribed as 31 Car.2.21/An act for the better/securing the liberty/of the Subjects and/for preventing of/Imprisonment/Beyond the Seas.
5) Illus. R. Radford, Island to Empire, Adelaide, 1997, no.118, p 312.

Referenceback to top

Simon & Saywell (eds.) 2004
Complete Illustrated Catalogue, NPG, ed. J. Simon & D. Saywell, 2004, p 557.

Provenanceback to top

Miss J. M. Seymour (d. 1944), East Knoyle, sale Christie’s, 19 January 1945, lot 67; Christie’s, 1 August 1980, lot 33, bought Leggatt for the NPG.

Reproductionsback to top

Worthington 1821 without background, from a drawing by Roth (Hoare, Modern History of South Wiltshire, I, 1822).


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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