Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.19587

    Portrait of Abel Boyer

    Date
    c.1715
    Sitter
    Abel Boyer (1662 - 1729, French-British) , Lexicographer
    Creator
    Michael Vandergucht (1660 - 1725, Flemish) , Engraver
    After
    Bernard Lens the elder (1659, British) , Printmaker
    Thomas Murray (1663 - 1735, British) , Painter
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 175mm
    width (print): 113mm
    Subject
    Art & culture
       > Literature
          > Lexicography
    Description
    Head and shoulders study of Abel Boyer, part of a book frontispiece design, is shown in an oval frame within a pedestal flanked by Athene (left) and Mercury (right), the latter holding the volume, Boyer’s Royal Dictionary. Behind, eighteen other portraits of poets and intellectuals in oval frames: including Royal Society Fellows, Thomas Sprat and John Locke.

    Plate from a grangerized copy of A history of the Royal Society, with memoirs of the Presidents…by Charles Richard Weld (London, John W. Parker, 1848). In this edition, the original two volumes were extended to eight volumes with the addition of extra-illustrations and documents, by Alexander Meyrick Broadley.

    The engraving appears at p.ix of Weld’s introductory text.

    Inscribed within the design ‘The Royal DICTIONARY. French and English by Mr. BOYER’. Inscribed below the main portrait: ‘Mr. A. BOYER T Murray Pinx.’ Inscribed below: ‘B. Lens delin. M. Vdr. Gucht Sculp.

    Abel Boyer (1667?-1729) French lexicographer and journalist, author of miscellaneous works.
    Object history
    Print from Charles Richard Weld's A history of the Royal Society, vol. 1... (London, John W. Parker, 1848) grangerized by the writer and collector Alexander Meyrick Broadley (1847–1916) into 8 volumes, adding illustrative material and manuscript items to Weld's text. The books were initially owned by Ludwig Mond FRS (1839–1909), and according to an inscription by his son Robert Ludwig Mond FRS (1867–1938) they were intended for presentation to the Society. This eventually happened in late 1959, the donor being the politician Harry Nathan (1889–1963), Lord Nathan of Churt.
    Related fellows
    Charles Richard Weld (1813 - 1869, British) , Author
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > France
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
    Powered by CollectionsIndex+/CollectionsOnline