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Oil painting Samuel Gale

Object number

LDSAL1309

Artist/Designer/Maker

Whood, Isaac - Artist

Production date

Circa 1730

Material

oil paint
Canvas

Technique

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

Height: 747mm
Width: 610mm

Location

Burlington House - (on display)

Content description

Samuel Gale (1682–1754) is shown half-length facing right, head turned slightly to the left, wearing a dark brown coat, his white shirt open at the neck, and a brown velvet turban hat. He is holding a book upright in his right hand and there is a ring on his fourth finger. He appears to be aged about fifty. The background is plain brown.
    Oil on canvas portrait of Samuel Gale FSA (1682-1754) in Original eighteenth-century running pattern gilded frame.
    The sitter has often been mis-identified as his older brother, Roger. However, before 1812, it was noticed by John Nichols at Scruton Hall as ‘Samuel Gale esq. by Whood’.

    Isaac Whood (1688/9–1752) was a portrait painter, copyist and a follower of Kneller and Vanderbank. He was a Fellow of the Society, and counted Samuel Gale and the duke of Bedford among his close friends. He was described by George Vertue as ‘a most humorous and agreeable companion … always entertaining’. His portrait (1738) of Samuel Gale’s brother, Roger, is in Trinity College, Cambridge.

    This portrait was probably painted around 1730 when Gale and Whood were both members of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society.