An Unknown Man thumbnail 1
An Unknown Man thumbnail 2
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level F , Case RMC, Shelf 7, Box A

An Unknown Man

Portrait Miniature
1660s (painted)
Artist/Maker
Samuel Cooper (artist)
Place of origin
England (painted)

Unfinished portrait of a man, in an oval, head and shoulders, facing to front. Features delicately hatched in brown and sanguine with some grey shadow about the mouth and eyes, the eyeballs in opaque grey hatched with black; on a warm carnation ground; hair in pale brown wash with a secondary wash in semi-opaque paler colour; background indicated in strokes of brown wash; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.

Delve deeper

Discover more about this object
read Portrait miniatures at the V&A In 1857, the year the new South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) opened to the public, the museum acquired its first portrait miniature – an image of Queen Elizabeth I by Nicholas Hilliard. The miniature, housed in an enamelled gold locket with a jewelled cover, is a rare survival as most E...

Object details

Categories
Portraits
Paintings
Object type
Portrait miniature
TitleAn Unknown Man (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book
Vellum
Watercolour
Painting
Brief description
Portrait miniature, unfinished, of an unknown man. Watercolour on vellum by Samuiel Cooper, probably 1660s.
Physical description
Unfinished portrait of a man, in an oval, head and shoulders, facing to front. Features delicately hatched in brown and sanguine with some grey shadow about the mouth and eyes, the eyeballs in opaque grey hatched with black; on a warm carnation ground; hair in pale brown wash with a secondary wash in semi-opaque paler colour; background indicated in strokes of brown wash; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.
Dimensions
  • Sheet height: 96mm
  • Sheet width: 71mm
  • Drawn oval height: 83mm
  • Sheet width: 66mm
Dimensions taken from John Murdoch Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
Content description
Portrait of a man, head and shoulders, to front, unfinished.
Styles
English School
Stuart
Restoration
Production typeUnique
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'munday at no [on]' (Inscribed, recto, in sanguine wash)
  • 'Cooper' (Inscribed again in graphite on the back)
Object history
Provenance: Presumably acquired from Cooper's estate by the Rosses, or perhaps by Priestman (see Rosse, Cat. No. 143) and perhaps in the Michael Rosse sale, 2 April 1723; eventually purchased by Edwin [Durning] Lawrence before 1862, and sold by him to the Museum for £525 in 1892.
Subject depicted
Man
Bibliographic references
  • Murdoch, John. Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
  • p. 132 Emma Rutherford and Dr Bendor Grosvenor, Warts and All. The portrait miniatures of Samuel Cooper London: Philip Mould & Company, 2013.
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
449-1892

About this object record

Explore the Collections contains over a million catalogue records, and over half a million images. It is a working database that includes information compiled over the life of the museum. Some of our records may contain offensive and discriminatory language, or reflect outdated ideas, practice and analysis. We are committed to addressing these issues, and to review and update our records accordingly.

You can write to us to suggest improvements to the record.

Suggest feedback

Record createdJuly 1, 2009
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1099752/an-unknown-man-portrait-miniature-samuel-cooper/
Download as: JSONIIIF Manifest