Portrait of Thomas Flatman

Chaloner Smith thought the print might be the younger Faithorne’s earliest, made with the assistance of his father, and after a likeness by his father or by Flatman himself, an accomplished miniaturist as well as a poet. But the elder Faithorne was an engraver and his involvement unlikely, while the plate most probably records a painting by John Hayls; Robert White, famous for the verisimilitude of his likenesses, probably excerpted the bust for a frontispiece engraving, in which he names the sitter and this artist, best known for his portrait of Samuel Pepys.

There are probably four states: in the first, recorded by Chaloner Smith but not presently known, the roll of paper held by the sitter has a coat of arms and coronet; in the second the paper is re-grounded and prints black; in the third the head appears, as in the present impression; in the fourth the plate is insensitively reworked. Two impressions of the third state (Amsterdam and Washington), have the sitter identified as John Ogilby.


We are most grateful to Nicholas Stogdon for the correct identification of the engraver and subject, and the above note.