Sharon Turner

Sharon Turner, the pioneering Anglo-Saxon historian whose History of the Anglo-Saxons helped establish Old English studies as a serious discipline, sits for this 1817 portrait at the National Portrait Gallery. Turner, a London attorney by profession, taught himself Anglo-Saxon and produced the first modern narrative history of England before the Norman Conquest. His scholarly achievement was remarkable for a man without university training, and his work influenced the young Benjamin Disraeli, whom Turner mentored.

The scholar-historian is shown with the attributes of learning, his expression conveying the intellectual curiosity that drove his pioneering research. Shee"s palette is typically dark and warm, with the sitter"s face emerging from the shadowed background as the focal point. The rendering shows the careful but efficient technique of Shee"s mature period.