[Scottish National Memorials Contents]
Lent by MRS. WILLIAM NELSON. (282-291).
1. JOHN KNOX. A reversed (turned to our right), and probably earlier, version of No. 17 (below). [J. M. G.]
2. JOHN KNOX, from the original picture in the possession of Lord Torphichen. Engraved by J. Cochran. Frontispiece to McCrie’s Life of Knox. (Edinburgh, 1831.) [J. M. G.]
3. JOHN KNOX, from the original in the Collection at Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh. Drawn by Wm. Hilton, R.A. Engraved (with permission) by R. Cooper. Plate from Lodge’s Portraits, folio edition, vol. i. (London, 1821.) [J. M. G.]
4. JOHN KNOX, from a picture in the College of Glasgow. Buchaniæ Comes sc. Plate from Pinkerton’s Scottish Gallery. In the opinion of Drummond this is a manufactured portrait, probably suggested by No. 7, and by the original of No. 8. [J. M. G.]
5. JOHN KNOX, from a picture in the possession of Lord Somerville. Marked, in facsimile of Thomas Carlyle’s handwriting ‘ “John Knox.” [The one Portrait I ever cd believe to be a likeness of Knox. – T. Carlyle, Feb. 7, 1874.] Engraved A.D. 1849 in Knight’s Pictorial History, ii. 548].’
6. JOHN KNOX. Plate from Boissard’s Bibliotheca Chalcographica. (Frankfort, 1650.) [J. M. G.]
7. JOHN KNOX. Plate from Verheiden’s Praestantium Aliquod Theologorum, etc., Effigies. (The Hague, 1602), engraved by Hondius, the elder, probably from a drawing or painting by A. Vaensoun. [J. M. G.]
8. JOHN KNOX. Woodcut in Laing’s edition of the Works of Knox, vol. i. (Edinburgh, 1846), copied from the portrait in Beza’s Icones, 1580, which was probably executed from the same original as No. 7. [J. M. G.] (See Fig. 79.)
9. JOHN KNOX. A modern copy from the Hondius engraving. [J. M. G.]
10. JOHN KNOX, marked in pencil, ‘Sam. Clark, 1650.’
11. JOHN KNOX, returning home after having preached his last Sermon. A. Ritchie, delt. W. H. Lizars. sc.
12. MONUMENT to the Memory of John Knox, erected in the Fir Park, Glasgow. Engraved on steel by J. Swan.
13. JOHN KNOX (?), from an original painting in Hamilton Palace. Trotter sc. Plate from Smith’s Iconographia Scotica, where it is said to represent ‘John Knox the younger.’ [J. M. G.]
14. JOHN KNOX. Roberts sc. Plate from Pinkerton’s Scottish Gallery, where it is rightly suggested that it is surely some other person than Knox. It is from the same picture as that from which No. 3 is taken. [J. M. G.]
15. JOHN KNOX. Engraved from an original painting in the possession of Joseph Williamson, Esq., Advocate. Kay, fecit and sculpt. From the same original as the portrait of Knox given in the Appendix to Kay’s Portraits. (Edinburgh, 1838.) [J. M. G.]
16. JOHN KNOX, ‘from an original painting in the possession of Miss Knox, at Edinborough.’ S. Allen sc.
17. JOHN KNOX. R. Cooper sc. Plate from Knox’s History of the Reformation, folio. (Edinburgh, 1732.) A reversed version (turned to our left) of No. 1 above. [J. M. G.]
18. JOHN KNOX. Two pen drawings by John Kay, one of them being the study for the engraving No. 15 above. [J. M. G.]
The above engravings form ‘The Laing Collection of Knox Portraits, from the Cabinet of the late William Nelson, Esq., of Salisbury Green, Edinburgh.’ The portraits Nos. 3, 13, and 14 have certainly no claim to be regarded as authentic. Interesting accounts of the portraits of Knox will be found in Thomas Carlyle’s Portraits of John Knox, first published in Fraser’s Magazine, and afterwards collected in the complete editions of his works; and in the able reply by James Drummond, R.S.A., Notes upon some Scottish Historical Portraits, published in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. xi. p. 237, and afterwards issued in pamphlet form.
The woodcut from which No. 8 above was copied (reproduced from the original in our Fig. 79 below), and the more accomplished, reversed, copper-engraving, from the same original. No. 7 above, by the elder Henry Hondius, given in Verheiden’s Praestantium aliquot Theologorum, &c., Effigies (The Hague, 1602), have usually been regarded as the most authentic portraits of Knox that exist. They are held by Drummond to have been executed from a drawing or painting which, along with one of James VI. himself, was sent by that King to Beza. The entry for the payment of these originals in the Lord Treasurer’s Accounts, dated June 1581 (the year after the publication of Beza’s work), is as follows:-
‘Itim, To Adriane Vaensoum, Fleming painter, for twa picturis painted be him, & send to Theodorus Besa, conforme to ane precept as the samin producit upon compt beris 8l. 10s.’ (14s. 2d. sterling).
The Torphichen oil portrait is evidently founded upon the Beza and Verheiden engravings.
In Goulart’s French translation of Beza’s Icones (Geneva, 1581), a portrait of William Tyndale is, by a printer’s error, substituted for that of Knox: and by a similar mistake it is repeated in Les Portraits des Hommes Illustres (Geneva, 1673), while in this latter work the original Beza portrait of Knox figures as representing Beza himself; see Carlyle’s Portraits of Knox. In the Life of Knox (London, 1650), the Hondius portrait is used; and the Beza portrait appears in Freherus’s Theatrum Virorum Eruditione Clarorum (Nuremberg, 1687); see Drummond’s Notes. [J. M. G.]
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