Catalogue description William Harvey 1578-1657 F. 1607

Artist unknown

Head and shoulders to left, in a painted oval; long grizzled brown hair, moustache, pointed beard; dark eyes on the spectator; plain white collar with no tassels; close fitting dark doublet, embroidered with gold at the front; in the background on the left, a table with books and a skull; right an anatomical table of the arterial circulation; inscribed round the oval: WILLIAM HARVEY.M.D.CAM.F.C.P.1607 AETATIS SUAE 50 ANO DOM. 1628.

It appears to be a modern forgery, probably largely based on the Houbraken engraving (see no 2 X-1444). An attempt has been made to rejuvenate the features to the age given, but it is ruled out altogether as an authentic portrait on comparison with that of Harvey aged about 45 from the Rolls Park collection, which the forger clearly did not know, as also he did not understand the build-up of contemporary costume.

There are perhaps only five basic portraits, believed to be taken from the life. These are: the head and shoulders painting by an unknown artist, aged about 45, from the Harvey family collection at Rolls Park*; the College portrait (no. 1--x183); the portrait with a view of Rome attributed to Wilhelm von Bemmel, now in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow; the etching ascribed to R. Gaywood (for the sitting for this, see Sir G. Keynes, in British Medical Journal, 1950, II, p. 43); and finally the marble bust by Edward Marshall in Hempstead Church, formerly believed to be posthumous, but probably taken before Harvey's death.

A statue by Henry Weekes was commissioned by the Fellow in 1875/6 for the portico of the former College building in Pall Mall (Annals, 20 April 1875).

* At the date of going to press, this portrait is in an American private collection; it was held by the College on loan between 1949 and 1959

Bought by the College in 1909

Cash Book, 19 January 1909; 1926 Catalogue. See also the Iconographical Note below.

Bibliographical note: Sir D'Arcy Power, Portraits of Dr. William Harvey (published by the Oxford University Press for the Historical Section of the Royal College of Medicine) 1913; Sir Geoffrey Keynes in the British Medical Journal, 18 November 1944, II, p. 669; Sir Geoffrey Keynes, The Portraiture of William Harvey (The Thomas Vicary Lecture, 1948, published with a catalogue and 32 plates, by the Royal College of Surgeons, London), 1949.

William Harvey, distinguished physician, great physiologist, and inspirer of medical science throughout the world, was the eldest son of Thomas Harvey, a "yeoman in substantial circumstances", of Folkestone, Kent.

From the Grammar school of Canterbury, he entered Caius College, Cambridge, as a pensioner, at the age of 16, taking his arts degree in 1598. Having chosen medicine as a profession, he then left Cambridge for Padua, where he graduated and won the highest esteem of the world's greatest teachers of the time, including Fabricius. Returning to England and taking his Cambridge degree, Harvey settled in London, marrying in 1604 a daughter of Dr. Launcelot Browne, who had been physician to Queen Elizabeth.

Elected physician in 1609 to St. Bartholomew's hospital, and in 1615 Lumleian lecturer, Harvey began the exposition of his views on the circulation of the blood which were published in 1628 in his famous work Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis.

Harvey was physician to James I and Charles I, being present at the battle of Edgehill, where the Prince and the Duke of York were placed in his care. With the surrender of Oxford he lost the wardenship of Merton College, but a far worse blow in the Civil War was the pillaging of his house in London and the loss of many anatomical studies. In his later years he was happy in the care of his successful merchant brothers, and devoted himself with great generosity to the welfare of the College of Physicians, notably in the provision of its library. He was elected President in 1654 but declined the office on account of age and infirmity.

"The private character of this great man," says Aikin*, "appears to have been in every respect worthy of his public reputation. Cheerful, candid, and upright, he was not the prey of any mean or ungentle passion. He was as little disposed by nature to detract from the merits of others, or make an ostentatious display of his own, as necessitated to use such methods for advancing his fame. The many antagonists whom his renown and the novelty of his opinions excited were in general treated by him with modest and temperate language, frequently very different from their own; and while he refuted their arguments, he decorated them with all due praises. He lived on terms of perfect harmony and friendship with his brethren of the College, and seems to have been very little ambitious of engrossing a disproportionate share of medical practice. In extreme old age, pain and sickness were said to have rendered him somewhat irritable in his temper; and as an instance of want of command over himself at that season, it is related ?hat in the paroxysms of the gout he could not be prevented from plunging the affected joint in cold water: but who can think it strange that when his body was almost worn down, the mind should also be debilitated?

"In familiar conversation, Harvey was easy and unassuming, and singularly clear in expressing his ideas. His mind was furnished with an ample store of knowledge, not only in matters connected with his profession, but in most of the objects of liberal inquiry, especially in ancient and modern history, and the science of politics. He took great delight in reading the ancient poets, Virgil in particular, with whose divine productions he is said to have been sometimes so transported as to throw the book from him with exclamations of rapture. To complete his character, he did not want that polish and courtly address which are necessary to the scholar who would also appear as a gentleman.

"Harvey, in his own family circle, must have been affectionate and kind--characteristics of all his brothers--who appear to have lived together through their lives in perfect amity and peace. For twenty years before he died he took no care of his wordly concerns; but his brother Eliab, who was a very wise and prudent manager, ordered all, not only faithfully but better than he could have done for himself.

"In Harvey the religious sentiments appear to have been active; the exordium to his will is unusually solemn and grand. He also evinces true and elevated piety throughout the whole course of his work on Generation, and seizes every opportunity of giving utterance to his sense of the immediate agency and omnipotence of Deity. He appears, with the ancient philosophers, to have regarded the universe and its parts as actuated by a Supreme and all-pervading Intelligence."

* Aikin, Biographical Memoirs of Medicine in Great Britain, 1780.

Manufacture of posthumous images of Harvey began early: the demand came not only from medical men and from institutions, but from more general connoisseurs of famous men such as Bishop Ken, who acquired a portrait for his library at Longleat, c. 1700. The resulting images are numerous and confusing. The first attempt on any scale to classify them was made by Sir D'Arcy Power in 1913, who however was not sufficiently sceptical. There followed various scattered articles on problems raised by individual portraits (all mentioned by Keynes), and then Sir Geoffrey Keynes's short preliminary summary of the subject in the British Medical Journal, 1944, before his detailed and elaborate exposition in the Thomas Vicary Lecture of 1948, which will remain the standard work.

Supplementary to these, but vivifying them, is Aubrey's description: "He-was not tall, but of the lowest stature, round faced, olivaster complexion; little eie, round, very black, full of spirit; his hair was black as a raven, but quite white 20 years before he died ... very cholerique and in his young days wore a dagger; but the Dr. would be too apt to draw out his dagger upon every slight occasion." For the full discussion of all known portraits, the student is referred to Keynes's monograph, where all the portraits, the main types and the derivative images are fully described and illustrated.