Portrait of St Mark

Signed by the artist and dated. One of West's designs for the trompe l'oeil portraits of the 12 saints in the clerestory of the Chapel of Greenwich Hospital, the final versions being executed by Biagio Rebecca. This is numerically the first of the set of 16 individual portraits (including those of the prophets Daniel, Zachariah, Micah and Malachi but excluding the roundel and oval biblical-story designs that follow on from PAH3946). Those of which there are at present (June 2017) some electronic images from monochrome glass negatives taken by Philibert Jacques Melotte in the period 1908-38, while working as a computer/ assistant at the Royal Observatory, are as follows (with the Melotte image of the present one being N64399):-

Matthew (PAH3933: image N64397), John (PAH3934: image N64396), Daniel (PAH3935: image N64392), Simon (PAH3936: image N64400), Luke (PAH3937: image N64391, and one of the finished panel N64387), Thomas (PAH3938), Phillip (PAH3939), James the less, son of Alphaeus (PAH3940: image N64393), Zachariah (PAH3941), James the greater, son of Zebedee (PAH3942: image N64394), Andrew (PAH3943: image N64398), Bartholomew (PAH3944), Matthias (PAH3945), Peter (PAH3953: image N64395,and one of the finished panel, N64388), Micah (PAH3958) and Malachi (PAH3959).

The individual shown in four of Melotte's images (N64389-90, N64392 and N64400) lack specific identifying attiributes and remain to be identified here. [PvdM 6/17]

Object Details

ID: PAH3932
Type: Drawing
Display location: Not on display
Creator: West, Benjamin
Date made: 1788
People: Saint Mark
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Greenwich Hospital Collection
Measurements: Sheet: 384 x 170 mm; Mount: 733 mm x 555 mm