Jonathan Swift
1 portrait of Jonathan Swift
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Jonathan Swift
after Unknown artist
etching, published 1752
6 3/4 in. x 3 7/8 in. (170 mm x 97 mm) paper size
Given by the daughter of compiler William Fleming MD, Mary Elizabeth Stopford (née Fleming), 1931
Reference Collection
NPG D31520
Events of 1752back to top
Current affairs
Calendar Act (also known as Chesterfield's Act after Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield) comes into force, abolishing the old Julian calendar and adopting the more accurate Gregorian calendar. The year now begins on 1st January rather than 25th March.Parliament passes a bill to bestow estates forfeited by Jacobites to the Crown and use the revenue to develop the Scottish Highlands.
Art and science
Artist William Hogarth publishes his influential book The Analysis of Beauty which presents his ideas about aesthetics.Charles Avison publishes Essay on Musical Expression; the first work of musical criticism published in English.
Obstetrician William Smellie introduces scientific midwifery.
International
Benjamin Franklin flies a kite into a thunder cloud to demonstrate the nature of electricity.Georgia becomes a royal colony; the last of the thirteen American colonies.
French seize or evict every English-speaking trader in the region of upper Ohio. Liberty Bell arrives in Philadelphia.
Robert Clive forces the surrender of French troops in the aftermath of the Siege of Trichinopoly in India.
Comments back to top
We are currently unable to accept new comments, but any past comments are available to read below.
If you need information from us, please use our Archive enquiry service . Please note that we cannot provide valuations. You can buy a print or greeting card of most illustrated portraits. Select the portrait of interest to you, then look out for a Buy a Print button. Prices start at around £6 for unframed prints, £16 for framed prints. If you wish to license an image, select the portrait of interest to you, then look out for a Use this image button, or contact our Rights and Images service. We digitise over 8,000 portraits a year and we cannot guarantee being able to digitise images that are not already scheduled.
Related pages
- Searching for Shakespeare
- Brilliant Women
- Popular Prints of Victoria and Albert
- Nelson: before and after Trafalgar
- Making History: Printed Portraiture in Tudor and Stuart Britain
- Gunpowder, Treason and Plot
- Chartist Portraits
- Silhouettes display, 2004-05
- William Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age
- Return to Life: A New Look at the Portrait Bust
- Restoration Lives: Samuel Pepys and His Circle
- Theodore de Mayerne
- Mary, Queen of Scots: Fact and Fiction
- Escape to Eden
- Mary, Queen of Scots
- Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Art Conservation Project
- His picture in little: Shakespeare, Hamlet and Tacita Dean
- Votes for women
- Rebel women
- 'This sceptred isle': Shakespeare and the Plantagenets
- 2019 Anniversaries
- Peterloo 1819: democracy, protest and justice
- Everyday icons: collecting popular portraits
- Tudor and Elizabethan matching pairs
- Love Stories
- Icons and Identities: Shakespeare to Winehouse
- Love stories: art, passion and tragedy