How you can use this image
Notes
Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.
This is a half-length portrait of an unknown man, facing forwards, thought to have been a benefactor to the Company. It has been speculated that the painting may depict John Kendrick, a merchant, and later a citizen and draper of London in 1624 or William Breary, a merchant adventurer and alderman of York in 1637 who was Governor from 1611–1614 and 1632–1635. He wears an expensive black robe with white cuffs, a fashionable ruff, and a black skull cap edged with lace. In his left hand he holds a red book. His right hand rests on a skull. The gold ring on his left hand is inlaid with a carved skull, echoing the real one on which his other hand rests, the ring may have had merchant's mark on the other side of the bezel. In the seventeenth century.
Merchant Adventurers’ Hall
York
Title
Portrait of an Unknown Gentleman with a Red Book and a Skull
Date
c.1610
Medium
oil on wood panel
Measurements
H 89 x W 69 cm
Accession number
YORMA 345
Work type
Painting
Merchant Adventurers’ Hall
Fossgate, York, North Yorkshire YO1 9XD England
-
Mary Sowerby (1754–1812) University of Bedfordshire -
John Jacob Smith (1790–1873) Bridgnorth Town Council -
John Smalman Bridgnorth Town Council -
Reverend Chancellor James Thomas Law (1790–1876) Lichfield District Council -
Cottage Comfort Erewash Borough Council -
Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire* Erewash Borough Council -
The Old Blacksmith's Erewash Borough Council - 3,791 more