A Tale of Two Portraits. A Note on Two Alleged Images of Thomas Harriot

J.M. Dudley (1)

1 FEMTO-ST - Franche-Comté Électronique Mécanique, Thermique et Optique - Sciences et Technologies (UMR 6174)

This article is an extended reprint of one published at the invitation of the late Professor Gordon Batho (1929-2013) in The Harrioteer: The Newsletter of the Thomas Harriot Seminar, University of Durham, April 2000. The article discusses the provenance of a famous portrait displayed at Trinity College, Oxford, which is widely described as being of the celebrated English mathematician Thomas Harriot (c.1560-1621). However, as we discuss here, the evidence for this attribution is weak, and unless additional information becomes available, the only conclusion to be drawn is that no documented portrait of Harriot survives.

Mots clés: Thomas Harriot

Domaines: Histoire de la Physique [physics.hist-ph]; Optique [physics.optics]

J.M. Dudley. A Tale of Two Portraits. A Note on Two Alleged Images of Thomas Harriot. 2000. ⟨hal-03839673⟩