ISAAC NEWTON

Vintage restrike 8 1/2 inch x 13 3/4 inch engraving titled ISAAC NEWTON.

Portrait of Sir Isaac Newton, bust directed to right but looking at the viewer, wearing long wig; in an architectural oval on a pedestal with allegorical scene in a roundel; below scientific instruments and a scroll.

After Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646 – 1723).

German-born painter who settled in England and became the leading portraitist there in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He studied in Amsterdam under Bol, a pupil of Rembrandt, and later in Italy, before moving to England, probably in the mid-1670s. The opportune death of serious rivals (notably Lely in 1680) and his own arrogant self-assurance enabled him to establish himself as the dominant court and society painter by the beginning of the reign of James II (1685).

Print by Jacob Houbraken (1698 – 1780).

Jacobus Houbraken was a Dutch engraver and the son of the artist and biographer Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719), whom he assisted in producing a published record of the lives of artists from the Dutch Golden Age.

Lettered in lower margin: ‘D.or EPHRAIM BONUS MEDICUS HEBRAEUS/ Alter Avenzooar grandi sub judice, magnus/ in medicis, magni discipulus que patris’.

Originally from ‘The Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain with their lives and characters’, by Thomas Birch and engraved by Mr Houbraken and by Mr Vertue.

Print size 16 inch x 20 inch

The engraving is in good to very good condition with a small piece out of the top edge and age related toning. Reverse side blank.