The Irish-born Shee was primarily a portrait painter. He moved to London in 1788 where, after working as an engraver, he enrolled in the Royal Academy Schools in 1790. He was elected a full academician in 1805 An energetic reformer, Shee published Rhymes on Art, or the Remonstrance of a Painter (1800) which called for national support for the arts.
Artist: Sir Martin Archer Shee
Size 19 x 13 cms
Price £18.00
Ref:3058
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban, PC QC was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England. His works are credited with developing the scientific method and remained influential through the scientific revolution. Bacon has been called the father of empiricism.
Artist: Jacobus Houbraken
Size 16 x 10 cms
Price £10.00
Ref:3059
George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, KG was an English soldier and politician, and a key figure in the Restoration of the monarchy to King Charles II in 1660
Artist: Robert White
Size 16 x 10 cms
Price £10.00
Ref:3062
Pope was first noticed by Jacob Tonson who published his Pastorals in 1709. With The Rape of the Lock 1712, and his translations of Homer, Pope became the most formidable literary figure of his day, with a large circle of friends and enemies. Primarily a satirical poet and of unsurpassed metrical skill, he wrote ‘what oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed’. A friend of Swift & Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and famous in the history of landscape gardening for the grounds of his villa at Twickenham, he was revered as one of the great personalities of the age.
Artist: Charles Grignion,
Size 16 x 10 cms
Price £10.00
Ref:3061
Dryden was appointed Poet Laureate by Charles II in 1668. He wrote over twenty plays, including All for Love (1678), and numerous poems, particularly political satires, such as ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (1681), and odes, including the famous ‘Ode for St Cecilia’s Day’. In 1686 he converted to Roman Catholicism, and at the Revolution of 1688 he was deprived of the laureateship. He devoted the rest of his life largely to translations, notably a verse translation of the works of Virgil.
Artist: Sir Godfrey Kneller,
Size 16 x 10 cms
Price £10.00
Ref:3056
Benjamin Jonson was an English playwright and poet, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours
Size 16 x 10 cms
Price £10.00
Ref:3055
Butler was a writer whose poem, Hudibras, published in three parts (1662, 1663 and 1678), was an immediate success. Based on his experiences in the households of the Puritan gentry, it is an envenomed satirical attack on Puritanism, written in cantering octosyllabics, full of puns and outrageous rhymes. Charles II enjoyed it, and for a century it was a bestseller.
Artist: Sir Peter Lely
Size 16 x 9 cms
Price £10.00
Ref:3057
Anna produced the humanitarian Tales of Pity on Fishing, Shooting and Hunting in 1814, and collaborated with her sister on collections of stories. In all, she published some thirty works, many being translated into French.
Subject gender: Female
Artist: George Henry Harlow
Size 13 x 11 cms
Price £10.00
Ref:3053
The youngest daughter of Henry IV of France and Marie de Medici, Henrietta Maria married Charles I in 1625, her Catholicism alienated many of her English subjects. She gave strong, loving support to Charles I during his troubles, and practical assistance during the Civil War by personally bringing munitions from France, and pawning her jewellery to raise funds.
Subject gender: Female
Artist: Sir Anthony Van Dyck
Size 16 x 9.5 cms
Price £10.00
Ref:3117
The Roman Catholic queen of Charles II and daughter of John, Duke of Braganza, afterwards King of Portugal, Catherine came to England in 1662, bringing a dowry of Tangier, Bombay and £300,000. Shy, solemn and pious, she was devoted to Charles who, although he hurt her by his infidelities, was genuinely attached to her.
Subject gender: Female
Artist: John Smith, after Jacob Huysmans
Size 16 x 9 cms
Price £12.00
Ref:3070