Portrait of Isaac Newton
{{Short description|Painting by Godfrey Kneller}}
{{Use British English|date=March 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox artwork
| title = Portrait of Isaac Newton
| image = Portrait of Sir Isaac Newton, 1689 (brightened).jpg
| image_size = 250px
| artist = Godfrey Kneller
| year = 1689
| medium = Oil on canvas
| height_metric = 76
| width_metric = 64
| height_imperial =
| width_imperial =
| metric_unit = cm
| imperial_unit = in
| owner = Private collection
}}
Portrait of Isaac Newton is an oil on canvas{{Cite web |title=Newton by Kneller {{!}} Lines of thought |url=https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/linesofthought/artifacts/newton-by-kneller/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171230182643/https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/linesofthought/artifacts/newton-by-kneller/ |archive-date=30 December 2017 |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=University of Cambridge |language=en-UK}} painting by German-born painter Godfrey Kneller, from 1689. It depicts the English polymath Isaac Newton (1643–1727) in his forties, who worked on the fields of mathematics, physics, alchemy and theology. The Earl of Portsmouth owns this painting.{{Cite web |title=Portrait of Isaac Newton {{!}} Science Museum Group Collection |url=https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co65496/portrait-of-isaac-newton |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=Science Museum Group |language=en}}
History
The painting was in Newton's home while he was still alive, resulting in it being seen by people close to him but not by much of the public. Instead, a 1702 painting of Newton by Kneller was more famous while Newton was still alive. It took until the 1860s for the painting to gather more widespread attention, at first only in black in white,{{Cite journal |last=Fara |first=Patricia |date=2003-02-07 |title=Face Values: How Portraits Win Friends and Influence People |url=https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1079668 |journal=Science |volume=299 |issue=5608 |pages=831–832 |doi=10.1126/science.1079668 |pmid=12574606 |issn=0036-8075}} where in 1860 a grandson of the inventor Samuel Crompton gave a photograph of the painting to Bennet Woodcroft, who the next year sent it to the engraver Thomas Oldham Barlow with the intention of engraving it, which the Earl of Portsmouth had consented to. Barlow asked the Earl of Portsmouth for permission for an oil copy to be made, and this was agreed upon. This copy helped increase the public's awareness. This copy of the portrait is now at the National Portrait Gallery, and so is a print of Barlow's engraving. Now the portrait is one of the most iconic depictions of Newton.
References
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{{Godfrey Kneller}}
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Category:Paintings by Godfrey Kneller