Portrait of Robert Boyle
Item
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Title
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Portrait of Robert Boyle
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Description
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Donated by the sitter’s nephew, the Third Earl of Burlington, in 1732, this portrait of celebrated scientist Robert Boyle was the first work of art acquired by The College of William and Mary. Boyle was renowned for the discovery, later known as “Boyle’s Law,” of the mathematical relationship between the pressure and volume of a gas. Upon his death, funds from his estate at Brafferton Manor in Yorkshire, England, founded the first Indian school in the New World, located at the College and named “Brafferton” after Boyle’s manor house. James Worsdale, a student of Sir Godfrey Kneller, based this work on a 1689 portrait of Boyle by Johann Kerseboom, a German-born artist active in England in the late 17th century and the first decade of the 18th century.
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Identifier
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1732.001
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Creator
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James Worsdale, after Johann Kerseboom
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Date
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1720 or 1726
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Medium
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Oil on canvas
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Format
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49 x 39 ins. (124.5 x 99.1 cm)
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Contributor
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Gift of the Third Earl of Burlington
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Publisher
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Muscarelle Museum of Art
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Date Available
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image
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Rights
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Rights and Reproductions are administered through the Office of the Registrar. The fee for images varies depending on size and medium of the requested product, and the use. You must submit a request through email or written letter. This can be submitted through email, fax, mail, or in person. For more information please contact Laura Fogarty at lfogarty@wm.edu or 757.221.2705.
Portrait of Robert Boyle