Catalogue description Thomas Hoy 1659-1718 (Candidate 1693)

By Thomas Forster,

Short half length, turned to the right; very long high-crowned wig, white neck-tie, loose drapery round the shoulders; full mouth and broad nostrils; clean-shaven; signed on the right: T. Foster/96 (the TF in monogram).

Presumably bought by the College at the Wellesley sale at Sotheby's June/July 1920 (354): from the Meyrick collection

the Francis Wellesley collection; exhibited at the South Kensington Museum, 1865; Victoria and Albert Museum, 1914/17. The identification is traditional; the signature is puzzling as the artist generally signed: Forster.

1926 Catalogue; Catalogue of the Miniatures and Portraits in Plumbago and Pencil belonging to Francis and Miriam Wellesley (n.d.), p. 48, (as Dr. Hay); J. J. Foster, Samuel Cooper, 1914/16, (II, List of English Miniature Painters, p. 114); C. F. Bell, 'English 17th Century Portrait Drawings' (Walpole Society Publications, vol. XIV, 1926, p. 75.)

Thomas Hoy was born in London. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St. John's College, Oxford. For a time he practised at Warwick, and in 1698 he was made Regius professor of physic at Oxford. He translated several Greek and Latin works into English. Hoy died in Jamaica.