Joseph Addison (1672–1719), Fellow (1698–1711)

This 1718 portrait of Joseph Addison by Godfrey Kneller depicts one of the most influential writers in the history of English letters — the essayist, playwright, and co-founder of The Spectator who had done more than any other writer to shape the tastes and manners of the Augustan reading public. Addison and his collaborator Richard Steele created The Spectator in 1711, producing 555 issues that became the defining texts of polite English culture and were read across Britain and throughout the colonies. Kneller was the leading portrait painter in England for nearly fifty years, serving as Principal Painter to the Crown under five monarchs. His studio produced vast quantities of portraits through a system where assistants painted drapery and background while Kneller himself concentrated on the face. This portrait of Addison, painted just a year before the writer's death in 1719, presents him at the height of his fame and his brief political career, having served as Secretary of State. The portrait is now at Magdalen College, Oxford, where it documents the college's connection to one of its most celebrated former members.

The portrait demonstrates Kneller's established late Baroque portrait manner, with broad handling and confident characterization of the literary figure.