Portrait of Robert Boyle

Item

Title
Portrait of Robert Boyle
Description
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.
Identifier
1732.001
Creator
James Worsdale, after Johann Kerseboom
Date
1720 or 1726
Type
Painting
Medium
Oil on canvas
Format
49 x 39 ins. (124.5 x 99.1 cm)
Contributor
Gift of the Third Earl of Burlington
Publisher
Muscarelle Museum of Art
Date Available
image
Rights
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.
Item sets
sstewa

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Brafferton Estate Building the Brafferton College of William Mary painting