Portrait of John Fletcher

attributed to English

National Portrait Gallery

circa 1620

This is the only known portrait from life of the important Jacobean playwright, John Fletcher. Fletcher was an immensely popular and prolific writer who wrote three plays jointly with Shakespeare, and collaborated with Francis Beaumont and others, as well as writing plays in his own right. This work shows Fletcher as a prosperous and well-dressed man with the tools of his trade - paper and pens - alongside him. The verse written on the paper beside him pays a compliment to Fletcher's wit. This acquisition will add to the important collection of portraits of late Elizabethan and Jacobean writers held by the National Portrait Gallery.

• Medium: oil on oak panel
• Dimensions: 92 x 71cm
• Art Fund Grant: £50000 ( Total: £217,862; Tax Remission)
• ArtFunded in: 2008
• Vendor: Through Sotheby's

Provenance

?Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon; by descent to anonymous vendor.

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