Portrait of Thomas Hobbes (c. 1660): Art, History and Details

Portrait of Thomas Hobbes (c. 1660) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Samuel Cooper (British, 1608/09–1672).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In his seventies when the portrait was painted, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) is turned slightly to his left, his eyes directed at the spectator. He has thin gray hair extending to his collar and a gray mustache and goatee. Only his head is finished; a thin gray wash loosely describes a plain, flat collar. Hobbes was born in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. In spite of humble parentage, he rose to prominence as a brilliant linguist and author of the 1651 book Leviathan, a seminal work of social contract theory that advocated for government led by a strong sovereign. As a royalist he was forced to flee England when the civil war broke out in 1642, and he resided in France until the war’s end in 1651. He was a friend of Cooper, who painted his miniature on at least two occasions.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Thomas Hobbes
• Date: c. 1660
• Creator attribution: Samuel Cooper (British, 1608/09–1672)
• Culture: England, 17th century
• Type: Portrait Miniature
• Technique: watercolor on vellum in a gilt metal frame
• Dimensions: Framed: 7.3 x 6.3 cm (2 7/8 x 2 1/2 in.); Sight: 6.7 x 5.8 cm (2 5/8 x 2 5/16 in.)
• Collection: P - British before 1800
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1949.548

A detail from the museum

A replica of Cleveland’s miniature was painted by Lady Margaret Bingham, Countess of Lucan.

Collection credit

The Edward B. Greene Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Fagan, Louis. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Engraved Works of William Faithorne. London: B. Quaritch, 1888.
• Foster, J. J. A List, Alphabetically Arranged, of Works of English Miniature Painters of the XVII Century, With a Description of the Same, Names of the Owners and Remarks. Supplementary to Samuel Cooper & the English Miniature Painters of the XVII Century. London: Dickinsons, 1914.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. Portrait Miniatures: The Edward B. Greene Collection. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.