Catalogue description Baldwin Hamey Sr. 1568--1640 L. 1609/10

By an unknown artist,

Head and shoulders, looking at spectator; greying hair, dark brown eyebrows, dark brown eyes, white close-trimmed pointed beard and moustache with falling ends, broad face, ruddy complexion; black cap trimmed with white lace, large white ruff, plain black costume; plain brown background, lit from right; coat of arms top left. Inscribed top right: .AETATIS.SVAE 64 /. A°. DNI. 1633 the AE in monogram; a faint inscription in black, not necessarily contemporary, to left of the sitter's head: Bald: Hamey / Senr M.D. / Van S(?)oamer Pinx.

No other portraits are available for comparison. Ralph Palmer, the sitter's great-grandson, and author of the manuscript biography in the College library, possessed, c. 1733 at his house in Little Chelsea, portraits of Hamey and his wife by Cornelius Jonson. The oil of Hamey has been equated with the signed and dated Jonson, 1624, last heard of when lent to the R.A. 1879 (77) by J. F. Stanford. Only the immediate provenance of our portrait is known; its identity rests at present on the internal evidence. The coat of arms, which appears to be contemporary or nearly so, seems correct: gules, a fesse between a roebuck, courant in chief. or and three estoiles in base argent. The rubbed inscription below gives the sitter's identity. though the attribution is unlikely: while there is a strong Netherlandish influence, the portrait is surely by a much more robust hand than Van Somer. The prominent, though perhaps slightly later, inscription top right is a year out: Hamey would have been sixty-five in 1633, but this might be due to the change in the calendar, or even to strengthening of the last figure of the date.

Given anonymously 28 July 1967; anonymous property, Christies, 28 July 1967, lot 284; bought at a country dealer's about five years before.

J.J. Keevil, Hamey the Stranger, 1962.p. 179, and refs. therein cited: Annals, 26 October 1967, p. 148a.

Descended from Odo de Hame, who was present at the siege of Acre, the father of Baldwin Hamey Jr. was born in Bruges and obtained his medical degree at Leyden. It took him a long time to graduate but when he finally did he distinguished himself, and his professors recommended him as physician to the Czar of Russia.

He held this appointment for five years. In 1598 he returned to Holland, married and went to live in London.

The victim of a fever epidemic, Baldwin Hamey Sr. died in 1640, and was buried in the church of All Hallows, Barking, where there is an epitaph composed by his distinguished son. In his Will he bequeathed the sum of £20 to the College.