STUDIO OF SIR GODFREY KNELLER | Portrait of Alexander Pope, early 18th century

[POPE, ALEXANDER]--STUDIO OF SIR GODFREY KNELLER

Portrait of Alexander Pope

oil on canvas

92 x 71.5 cm.; 28 3/8 x 28 1/8 in.

From the Studio of Godfrey Kneller. Kneller (1646-1723) was a leading portrait painter during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He was appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to the Crown by Charles II. Kneller’s studio was well established and prolific in their production of portraits. The prime version of this painting, which was executed in 1716 and owned by Pope himself, is now untraced. It is almost certainly that referred to by Pope in his letter to John Carlyll: ‘Kneller has made me a fine present of a picture’. Kneller and Pope were friends, as well as card-playing partners – here, the artist has represented the poet and literary critic holding a copy of the Iliad, which he had begun to translate in 1713, and which was the basis for his early fame and fortune. Other studio versions exist of the present portrait type, including that at Raby Castle, Staindrop. The image was widely dispersed after it was engraved by John Raphael Smith in 1717. 

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