The Digital Ark: Early Modern Collections of Curiosities in England and Scotland, 1580-1700
The Browne Family
The Browne family, with Thomas as a boy [Painting].Click image for full-size. Subject of/in a work of artThomas Browne (19 Nov 1605-19 Oct 1682) In Print: Souvenir of Sir Thomas Browne, With Twelve Illustrations, and Notes, n.p. Description:"This interesting picture represents a group of the Browne Family. The father stands on the left, the mother is seated on the right; between them are the three daughters, quaintly attired, and on his mother's knee the future Sir Thomas, a little figure in close red cap, red coat, and
white pinafore, clasping a black rabbit-a significant sign of his future position as a naturalist.
The painting is supposed to have been executed by a foreign artist, probably Dutch, inasmuch as the costume of the children is foreign, and besides this, a large number of Dutch artists, painters and engravers, settled in England at that period.
The painting is in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, whose ancestor, the first Countess, was nearly related to Sir Thomas Browne's father, and it is reasonable to suppose that after his death in 1613, or after the marriage of his widow to Sir Thomas Dutton, that the picture may have then found its way to Devonshire House, Piccadilly. It has never been engraved.
In the same mansion is to be seen a painting of the Countess, whose features are considered to be precisely similar to those of her relative" (Williams, n.p.).