Portrait of Sir Christopher Wrendetails

Portrait of Sir Christopher Wren

mastodon

Out of copyright (called public domain in the USA), hence royalty-free stock image for all purposes usage credit requested
Please do not redistribute without permission, since running this site is expensive.

This black and white engraving appears to be based on the 1711 “Kit-cat” of “Kit-kat” portrait in oils of Sir Christopher Wren by Godfrey Kneller; these portraits show the upper half of the subject, including the hands. The name Kit-cat derives from the Kit-Cat Club of Richmond, London: the ceiling wasn’t high enough for full-length portraits, so Kneller invented half-height ones.

Sir Christopher Wren (1632 – 1723) is a name well-known in Britain; he was the architect who designed the London rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1611.

Although St Paul’s Cathedral might not be today exactly what Wren had envisioned (there was a lot of opposition to his plans) none the less it is his vision that has survived. Wren designed more than fifty churches in London that were rebuilt after the fire.

I have not included an extract; the prose here seems turgid and dull by modern standards, but you can read the chapter, The Building of St. Paul’s (although the Tufts Digital Viewer seems to have some problems with phrases in italics, omitting them, oops!)

1818 biography of Sir Charles Wren

portraits, architects, people, men, wigs

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