After 5 years offline, IsaacNewton.org.uk is being updated during 2006. Please bear with us while we track down all the dead links etc.
Isaac Newton gallery
This is the earliest portrait of Sir Isaac Newton to survive. It was painted in 1689 when Newton was in London as a member of the Convention Parliament, following the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. The artist was Godfrey Kneller, perhaps the greatest portrait painter of his day.
Newton was 46 years old and Principia had been published two years previously. It represents Newton "at the height of his powers."
Many people (especially me) consider this to be by far the "best" portrait of Newton. Use the above links to decide for yourself.
The portrait is on display at
Farleigh House, the seat
of the Earl of Portsmouth.
The 1702 Kneller Portrait
Kneller painted Newton again in 1702, now as Master of the Mint and a public
figure. There is a
superb version
of the 1702 painting at
Carol Jackson Presents Fine
Art - in my opinion the best collection of famous paintings on the Web,
and well worth a long visit.
The painting itself is in the National
Portrait Gallery and is in pride of place
on their Room 8 page.
(newton.org.uk also has a
short note on the NPG and it is visited
on the central London walk.)
Other portraits
The following images of portraits and sculptures are grouped by site and contain several duplications.
- 1689 Kneller and a German Newton stamp from Pictures of Physicists at Frankfurt
- 1726 portrait by Enoch Seeman in the entry for Newton at the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
- The c1726 Vanderbank, stolen from Caltech in 1979. There is a web page about this.
- the 1689 Kneller and 1726 portrait by Enoch Seeman at Harry Nelson's Images of Physicists
- A copy of the 1725 Trinity portrait, attributed to Vanderbank from Brona, Helbing, and Majdanski's page on atomism.
- Another engraving of Newton at the Alchemy Virtual Library
- The British Library has a prominent sculpture of Newton based of a picture by William Blake, who was famous for his dislike of Newton. (Many scientists found this choice of sculpture to be symptomatic of the British intellectual establishment's patronising attitude to Science.)
- A copy of Newton's deathmask in the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh archives
There is a page with three portraits at the ISAAC site.
© 1994-2001 Andrew McNab. Back to isaacnewton.org.uk