The present portrait is based loosely on John Vanderbank’s three-quarter-length portrait of Isaac Newton in the Royal Society (fig. 1). At the time of Vanderbank’s portrait Newton was aged eighty-three. He had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1672 and was president from 1703 until his death in 1727. Copies of Newton’s portrait were fairly commonly owned and displayed during the eighteenth century. In the present copy the portrait has been reversed and the sitter’s unkempt hair tidied up. The resemblance to Vanderbank’s original is not convincing in terms of likeness, suggesting that it may have been made by a provincial artist.