7. Catalogue of the portraits in Christ’s, Clare and Sidney Sussex Colleges. Edited by J.W. Goodison

Describes the portraits and their history, with brief biographical details of the sitters; 13 plates

The portrait collections of Cambridge colleges have long been fertile sources for the historian, art historian and biographer, but the absence of any general published catalogue has prevented more than a few celebrated paintings from being widely known. This book supplies this want for the three colleges of Christ’s, Clare and Sidney Sussex.

Together these three colleges contain some 196 portraits, including paintings, drawings, sculpture and some figures in painted glass. The portraits include several famous pictures by van der Meulen, Cornelius Johnson, Lely and Kneller, and many of famous persons from Edward the Confessor to Siegfried Sassoon, including the Lady Margaret Beaufort, Cromwell, Milton, Darwin among many others important in the history of the university, the county, and the country at large.

The compiler, J. W. Goodison, describes each portrait and examines where appropriate the identification of the sitter and of the artist, the date and circumstance of the portrait’s creation and its later history. Where relevant he discusses the relationship to other portraits of the sitter and to an ad vivum standard of portraiture. There is a brief biographical notice of each sitter. Twenty of the portraits are reproduced in the book and reference is given to reproductions and engravings elsewhere.