Oil painting Samuel Gale
Object number
LDSAL1308
Artist/Designer/Maker
Unknown artist - Artist
Production date
Circa 1710
Material
oil paint
canvas (paint canvas)
canvas (paint canvas)
Technique
Oil On Canvas
Dimensions
Height: 1270mm
Width: 1143mm
Width: 1143mm
Location
Burlington House -
Content description
Gale is shown three-quarter length, standing to the left, posed with a drape in the grand manner. He wears a blue velvet coat with gold belt and buckles. A violet cloak is massed over his right shoulder and left hip. Gale wears a full grey periwig. There is an opening in the dull brown background on the right with a vista of barren hills and a large classical ruin, peopled with broken statuary. His shield of arms is depicted in the left hand background - azure on a fess between three saltires argent, three lions heads erased, the field langued gules, with a star in chief for one difference.
Oil on canvas portrait of Samuel Gale FSA (1682-1754) in original plain reverse gilt frame.
Samuel Gale (1682-1754) was the youngest son of the Reverend Thomas Gale, Dean of York and a godson of Samuel Pepys. About 1702, he was appointed the official Custom House searcher of imported books and antiquities, and in 1705 made a tour of England, which included a visit to Stonehenge. His only work published in his lifetime was A History of Winchester Cathedral (1715). He was elected the Society’s first Treasurer and served from 1718 to 1740. He lived in London and continued to make tours in the summer exploring antiquities with Andrew Ducarel while his eldest brother, Roger, looked after the family estates in Scruton, Yorkshire.
This portrait is one of the earliest depicting an antiquary to be deliberately set against an image of ruins. The sale catalogue attributes the painting to Kneller. While the portrait represents Gale as a relatively young man, and therefore would probably fall within Kneller’s Kitcat period (1702-17), its quality is not high enough to be by his hand.
This portrait is one of the earliest depicting an antiquary to be deliberately set against an image of ruins. The sale catalogue attributes the painting to Kneller. While the portrait represents Gale as a relatively young man, and therefore would probably fall within Kneller’s Kitcat period (1702-17), its quality is not high enough to be by his hand.
