Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim) (1493-1541)
after Quinten Metsys (Louvain 1466 - Antwerp 1530)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1700 - 1799
Materials
Oil on panel
Measurements
762 x 508 mm (30 x 20 1/2 in)
Place of origin
Antwerp
Order this imageCollection
Lacock, Wiltshire
NT 996322
Caption
This portrait depicts Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, (Einsiedeln 1493-1541), alias Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus, who was a physician, scholar, and alchemist. There is a version of this picture in the Louvre, with an inscription identifying the sitter, although the identity has been widely doubted. The author of the original picture has proved equally problematic, but the attribution to Metsys is the most widely accepted today. It was copied by Rubens, probably for himself, but sold a decade later to the Duke of Buckingham. Rubens’s copy was probably in England by 1626. The Lacock picture, however, does not have the landscape background found in Rubens’s version, so was probably copied after an engraving. It appears to have been painted in the 18th century.
Summary
Oil painting on panel, Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim) (1493-1541), after ? Quinten Metsys (Louvain 1466 - Antwerp 1530), 18th century. The original of this picture is now lost, although another copy remains in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.
Provenance
Given by Matilda Theresa Talbot (formerly Gilchrist-Clark) (1871 – 1958), who gave the Abbey, the village of Lacock and the rest of the estate to the National Trust in 1944, along with 96 of the family portraits and other pictures, in 1948
Credit line
Lacock Abbey, The Talbot Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
after Quinten Metsys (Louvain 1466 - Antwerp 1530) , artist