Sir Walter Raleigh (Portrait)
From Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia
Artist is possibly Edward Alcock (active 1757-1778)
1787
Oil on canvas
64.8 x 50.2 (25 1/2 x 19 3/4 inches)
History: Thomas Jefferson displayed this portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh in the top tier of his Parlor at Monticello due to his interest in Raleigh's early exploration of the North Carolina coast in 1584 and his premature attempt to colonize America. Jefferson also owned Sir Walter Raleigh's Essays (1650) and Raleigh's History of the World (1736). To explain government in Virginia, Jefferson used Queen Elizabeth's agreement with Raleigh in Notes on the State of Virginia, which was published in English at about the same time that Jefferson acquired the portrait of Raleigh.[1]
The portrait of Raleigh was exhibited on the top tier of the Parlor next to Cortez and adjacent to other early explorers of America- Columbus, Vespucci, and Magellan. In his Catalogue of Paintings Jefferson mistakenly wrote "copy from an Original of Holben,"[2] but Hans Holben predeceased Raleigh by nearly ten years.
The copyist may be Edward Alcock, who was active in Bath in 1757 and living in Birmingham in 1759-60, after an unidentified artist.
Provenance: Thomas Jefferson; by purchase at the Harding Gallery sale in 1833 to Colonel James W. Sever; by gift to the Pilgrim Society in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1868; by purchase to Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1965.
Footnote
- ↑ Stein, Worlds, 136.
- ↑ Catalogue is in a Private Collection.
