John Wallis

This 1701 portrait of John Wallis at the Bodleian Library depicts one of the most important English mathematicians of the seventeenth century. Wallis held the Savilian Chair of Geometry at Oxford for over fifty years and made fundamental contributions to infinitesimal calculus before Newton's formulation, as well as pioneering work in algebra and the study of deaf education. His mathematical work on infinite series and the concept of imaginary numbers laid foundations for Newton's later developments. Kneller's portrait of this distinguished mathematician at age eighty-five preserves one of the rare images of a key figure in the Scientific Revolution, placing him within the learned Oxford community that sponsored his long career.

The portrait presents the elderly mathematician with the scholarly dignity appropriate to his academic stature, Kneller rendering the aged features with naturalistic observation against the conventional backdrop of academic portraiture.