Called Samuel Butler (1612-1680)
British (English) School
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1670 - 1680
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
735 x 610 mm
Order this imageCollection
Wimpole, Cambridgeshire
NT 207909
Caption
Samuel Butler was the celebrated author of ‘Hudibras’ (1663), a satirical, epic romance, which poked fun at academic pedantry. He was so popular that the supply of portraits of him was insufficient to meet the demand. This portrait was therefore renamed, whose real subject is doomed to remain unknown. The bland, plump features of the sitter bear no relation to the long beaky ones of Samuel Butler, as seen in his portrait by Soest (a reduced copy of this is at another National Trust property, Knole).
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Called Samuel Butler (1612-1680), by British (English) School, circa 1670-80. A head-and-shoulders portrait of a long dark-haired man in robes with white lace cravat. Giltwood frame. Butler was the author of Hudibras (1663), a satirical romance which pokes fun at academic pedantry.
Provenance
From Lanhydrock, the Cornish seat of the Robartes family, once owners of Wimpole, 1992
Makers and roles
British (English) School, artist previously catalogued as attributed to Willem Wissing (Amsterdam 1656 - Burghley House 1687), artist