4/10/2023 0 Comments Isaac newton drawingJames Yonge, who visited the Society in November 1702 and was elected FRS at the time, recorded seeing ‘divers original pictures’ in the Council Room. Von Uffenbach, a foreign visitor briefly shown the Society’s meeting room, is the only person to make such a reference to Hooke’s portrait. It is very small and wretched and the best things there are the portraits of its members, of which the most noteworthy are those of Boyle and Hoock.' Finally we were shown the room where the Society usually meets. will usually say: ‘A rogue had it stolen away’, or he will show you pieces of it, saying: ‘It is corrupted or broken’ and such is the care they take of things!. If one inquires after anything, the operator who shows strangers round. not only in no sort of order or tidiness but covered with dust, filth and coal-smoke, and many of them broken and utterly ruined. 'the finest instruments and other articles. After being shown the Repository and meeting rooms at Gresham College, he wrote dismissively in his travel-journal, Like many other scientifically-minded travellers of the day, von Uffenbach was keen to see the famous Royal Society – but the reality was a severe disappointment for him. The second piece of evidence is a description of a visit to the Royal Society’s premises in 1710 by a German traveller, Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach. However if Mr Bownest did draw Hooke’s picture in 1674, this is the only reference Hooke made to it. Hooke was interested in art, and visited various painters, including Mary Beale, who painted his friend and colleague Robert Boyle, and the miniaturist Mary Moore, mother of Hooke’s friend Richard Waller (himself an accomplished artist). The first editors of the diary suggested that this was one ‘Bownest’, whose portrait of ejected minister Arthur Jackson is housed in the National Portrait Gallery in the form of an engraving by David Loggan. Left off taking tobacco - Mr Bonust drew picture.’ Garaways was a coffee-house much visited by Hooke, but ‘Mr Bonust’ is a rather mysterious figure who only appears once in the diary. In an entry for 16 October 1674 he wrote ‘At Garaways. The first comes from Hooke’s diary, or memorandum book, in which he recorded his daily life in some detail for long periods from the 1670s to 1690s. There are two pieces of evidence to suggest there was a portrait. None of the evidence on this point is really conclusive. Finally, Newton was a ruthless and overbearing character who held grudges – or so they say.īut before we pronounce Newton guilty of destroying Royal Society property, we need to consider the fundamental question of whether a portrait of Hooke existed in the first place. Newton oversaw the Society’s move to a new premises in Crane Court, and it is assumed that the portrait went missing during this move. After Hooke’s death in 1703 Newton was elected President of the Royal Society (‘they’ also say he waited until Hooke had died before becoming more active in the Society). His relations with Hooke had turned sour in 1686 following controversy over Hooke’s contributions to Newton’s theory of gravity. So the question is, did Newton do it? He seems to have had both motive and opportunity. Indeed, ’they’ do say this. The final scene in the 2009 Royal Shakespeare Company production The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes showed Newton slashing a portrait, a reference that shows how familiar this story has become. It also grips the public imagination – several visitors to the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary exhibition over the summer commented, ‘they say Newton destroyed a portrait of Hooke’. Therefore the thought that there might be an undiscovered or lost portrait of a famous and controversial figure like Robert Hooke is extremely tantalising. This is true for historians almost as much as anyone else. As Lisa Jardine pointed out recently, historical figures come to life so much more vividly when a portrait is available. Portraits have a peculiar fascination for people. Dr Felicity Henderson was the Royal Society Library Events and Exhibitions Manager from January 2008 to September 2013.
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