Image: Portrait of a Naval Officer, possibly Isaac Townsend, d.1765 RMG BHC3057f

Description: Portrait of a Naval Officer, possibly Isaac Townsend, d.1765 A large full-length portrait slightly to right in a blue velvet coat fastened with gold clips and a long full-bottomed wig. He holds a drape around him with his right hand and a telescope in his left. He stands on a raised platform in classical-patterned or panelled room, with a pilaster to the left decorated with a floral swag and, below, a foliage panel with a cherub. There is a window opening on the right, with a marine scene painted beyond. A private two-decker of 1670s type is shown flying a pre-1707 red ensign and pennants. Other shipping can be seen in the distance. This scene and the sitter's attribute of a telescope indicate that he has connections with the sea but the setting and his luxurious clothes also reveal that he is a man of high social status. The painting is part of the Greenwich Hospital Collection and was listed in 1912 as 'subject and painter unknown, but supposed to be Admiral Isaac Townsend'. Townsend was the Governor of Greenwich Hospital and best remembered for holding Admiral Byng under arrest there, in humiliating conditions, prior to his court-martial and subsequent execution at Portsmouth in 1757. His date of birth is unknown but he died in 1765, which given the apparent age of the sitter here and a pre-1707 date for the painting makes this identification questionable. Isaac Townsend (d.1765)
Title: Portrait of a Naval Officer, possibly Isaac Townsend, d.1765 title QS:P1476,en:"Portrait of a Naval Officer, possibly Isaac Townsend, d.1765 " label QS:Len,"Portrait of a Naval Officer, possibly Isaac Townsend, d.1765 "
Credit: http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/14530
Author: anonymous 
Permission: The original artefact or artwork has been assessed as public domain by age, and faithful reproductions of the two dimensional work are also public domain. No permission is required for reuse for any purpose. The text of this image record has been derived from the Royal Museums Greenwich catalogue and image metadata. Individual data and facts such as date, author and title are not copyrightable, but reuse of longer descriptive text from the catalogue may not be considered fair use. Reuse of the text must be attributed to the "National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London" and a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0 license may apply if not rewritten. Refer to Royal Museums Greenwich copyright.
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License: Public domain
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