Portraits

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For three hundred years there has been no known extant portrait of Robert Hooke. Some believe that Sir Isaac Newton might have been responsible for this, whilst others doubt that such a portrait ever existed. Felicity Henderson has summarised the arguments:

Spurious portraits

The issue of Time for 3rd July 1939 included a portrait alleged to be of "Scientist Hooke" (Time, 1939). The original engraving bore the names of neither subject nor artist. M.F. Ashley Montagu soon discredited the attribution (Montagu, 1941), noting the differences between it and contemporary descriptions of Hooke's appearance, including those by John Aubrey and Richard Waller.

Later, Hooke's biographer Lisa Jardine found a portrait in the Natural History Museum in London and published it on the cover of the first edition of her book. William Jensen, however, recognized the image as that of Belgian chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580-1644). Jardine subsequently explained how the mistake had happened (Jardine, 2010).

Internet searches for portraits of Hooke still produce both of these false attributions, and others.

Recent reconstructions

There have been some attempts to reconstruct a portrait from the accounts of Aubrey and Waller. In 2003 a 'Portraying Robert Hooke' competition was run by the Library of the Royal Society to mark the tercentenary of his death. The prize was donated by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Of these modern reconstructions, the best known are the series of paintings by Rita Greer. Examples of her work are on display at Gresham College, the Open University and Willen Church:

Other possibilities

The Isle of Wight History Centre has conjectured that the wax seal on an assignment of a mortgage between the town of Newport and Robert Hooke, signed and sealed on 2nd February 1684/85, which is held by the County Record Office, represents Hooke himself.

Professor Lawrence Griffing of Texas A&M University has recently made the case for Portrait of a mathematician by Mary Beale (1633-99) being the missing portrait of Hooke. Beale was known to Hooke. :

The painting was sold by Sotheby's in June 2006, but the identity of the buyer has not been made public.

Griffing's argument has been described as "unconvincing", but he has responded in its defence:

Professor Michael McBride of Yale University believes that he has identified Hooke in the painting of James II receiving the Mathematical Scholars of Christ's Hospital, by Antonio Verrio (c.1636-1707), which still hangs in the school's present buildings at Horsham. Hooke was a governor of the school.

Time 1939 portrait   Van Helmont portrait

Left: spurious portrait in Time, 1939 (Image 1), and right: the portrait of Jan van Helmont once thought to be Hooke (Image 2)
 

Portrait by Mary Beale

Portrait of a mathematician by Mary Beale (Image 3)
 

Verrio extract

Extract from the Verrio painting at Christ's Hospital. (Image 4)

 
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References

  1. Jardine (2010): Lisa Jardine, 'Mistaken identities', The Guardian (19th June 2010). Full text available
  2. Montagu (1941): M.F. Ashley Montagu, 'A spurious portrait of Robert Hooke (1635-1703)', Isis, vol.33, no.1 (1941), pp.15-17. Partial text available
  3. Time (1939): 'Old fashioned', Time (July 3, 1939), p.39. Full text available

 
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Image acknowledgments

So far as we know, all of the images reproduced on this page are in the public domain. We shall immediately take down on demand any that are still in copyright.

  1. False "Scientist Hooke" portrait, as reproduced in Time for 3rd July 1939, from Wikimedia Commons.
  2. Portrait of Jan Baptist van Helmont by Mary Beale, via Wikimedia Commons, under this licence.
  3. Portrait of a mathematician by Mary Beale, about 1680. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
  4. Extract from James II receiving the Mathematical Scholars of Christ's Hospital by Antonio Verrio and his assistants. Image courtesy Christ’s Hospital.

 
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Page last amended 10th October 2025