Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727)

This 1702 portrait of Sir Isaac Newton at the National Portrait Gallery depicts the greatest scientist of the age at the height of his public authority. Newton had published his Principia Mathematica in 1687, establishing the laws of motion and universal gravitation that would define European science for two centuries. By 1702 he was Master of the Mint, Member of Parliament for Cambridge, and shortly to become President of the Royal Society — the complete embodiment of the Enlightenment ideal of the scientist-administrator. Kneller's portrait of Newton is among the most significant images in the history of science, preserving the appearance of the man whose intellectual revolution transformed humanity's understanding of the physical universe.

Kneller captures Newton with the penetrating gaze and intellectual authority appropriate to the era's preeminent scientific mind, the portrait's restrained composition reflecting the scientist's famous reserve and concentration.