Robert Nanteuil (c. 1623-1678)
Portrait of John Evelyn (1620-1706)
1650, engraving on paper, fifth state of six
10 7/16 x 7 7/16 in. (26.5 x 18.9 cm) (image size)
Gift of Mrs. Frederick Paul Keppel (C00.0802.067)

The English scholar John Evelyn emigrated to Paris in 1649. The following year he reported in his Diary: “I sate to the famous Sculptor Nanteuil who engraved my Picture in coper. … Monsieur Nanteuil presented me with my owne Picture, don all with a pen, an extraordinary curiosity [sic]” (England, private collection). The circumstances surrounding the portrait – one of the rare examples of a foreigner in Nanteuil’s oeuvre – are unusual: not only that Evelyn commissioned it himself, but that he kept the plate, thus printing and distributing impressions of himself at his own leisure. Nanteuil portrayed Evelyn wrapped in a loose cape in harmony with the sitter’s wistful expression.