Yale Center for British Art

Creator:
John Closterman, 1660–1711, German, active in Britain (from 1680)
Title:
John Poulett, first Earl Poulett
Date:
ca. 1690
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
76 1/2 x 52 inches (194.3 x 132.1 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in ocher-color paint, lower right: "JOHN FIRST EARL POULETT."; Label on verso, upper center: "J.B. Closterman | (1660 - 1713) | John, 1st Earl Poulett | (handwritten) 6510"; upper center: "Pitt & Scott Ltd | London | (handwritten) Mellon | 64"; center: "Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd | [logo] | No. 32654 | London | 43 Old Bond Street | Piccadilly W"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1973.1.6
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
dog (animal) | sunset | sunrise | brocade | column (architectural element) | earl | hunter | boy | embroidery | hunting | rifle | costume | sash | waistcoat | buttons (fasteners) | stockings | portrait | landscape
Currently On View:
On view
Exhibition History:
In a New Light: 500 Years of British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2025-04-01 - 2026-01-30)
Publications:
Robert Colls, This sporting life : sport and liberty in England, 1760-1960, Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K., 2020, p. 369, GV706.35 .C65 2020 (LC) YCBA

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 54-55, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)

Judy Egerton, British Sporting and Animal Paintings 1655-1867 : A Catalogue : The Paul Mellon Collection, , Tate Publishing, London, 1978, pp. 9-10, no. 11, pl. 5, ND1383 G7 B75 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Wayne Franits, Godefridus Schalcken: A Dutch Painter in Late Seventeenth-Century London, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, p. 32, fig. 7, NJ18.Sch1247 F73 2018 (LC) (YCBA)

Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 1, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Malcolm Rogers, John and John Baptist Closterman, a Catalogue of Their Works , Volume of the Walpole Society, 1983, pp. 224-279, no.15, N12 W35 A1 + (YCBA)

Ellis Waterhouse, The Dictionary of 16th & 17th Century British Painters, Antique Collectors' Club, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1988, p. 48, ND464 W38 1988 (LC) (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
Although the date of Lord Poulett's birth is not known, his parents married in July 1667, and in 1679 John Poulett, 1st Earl Poulett, was described as a "weak child." Evidently he suffered from scrofula, or "the King's Evil," a form of tuberculosis that affects the lymph nodes in the neck, but he survived infancy and lived a long, quiet life at his country seat, Hinton St. George in Somerset. Judging from his appearance in this hunting portrait, John must have been around twelve to fourteen years of age, which means the picture cannot have been painted before 1680. This was the year in which he inherited his father's barony, which may have been the occasion that the portrait was commissioned to mark. Gallery label for Paul Mellon's Legacy: A Passion for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29)
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:112