Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

This portrait of Alexander Pope at the Walker Art Gallery captures the greatest English poet of the early eighteenth century — author of The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, the Essay on Man, and the translations of Homer that made him wealthy and independent. Pope was a friend and defender of Kneller — the painter appears in Pope's verse — and their friendship gives this portrait a personal dimension unusual in Kneller's professional output. The Walker Art Gallery's collection of British portraits includes this major image alongside other significant records of English literary and intellectual culture. Pope's physical appearance — short, slight, and deformed by childhood tuberculosis — made his portraits a subject of public curiosity alongside his extraordinary poetry.

The portrait renders Pope with intellectual intensity appropriate to his literary stature, Kneller capturing the poet's sharp, observant features with the precision that characterized his portraits of cultural celebrities.