Sir Theodore Colladon

This 1705 portrait of Sir Theodore Colladon at the Yale Center for British Art depicts a Huguenot physician who found refuge in England after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes forced French Protestants to choose between conversion and exile. Colladon's medical career in England exemplifies the extraordinary contribution that Huguenot refugees made to English professional life in medicine, science, commerce, and craft. The Yale Center's collection of British portraiture — assembled with particular strength in works documenting the Stuart and early Hanoverian periods — preserves this document of Huguenot integration into English professional society. Sir Theodore's medical career among the English elite gained him the knighthood that marks his successful assimilation.

The physician's portrait renders Colladon with professional dignity and the alert intelligence appropriate to a man of science, Kneller's technique conveying both the sitter's medical authority and his cultural refinement.