Portrait of Sir John Franklin, RN (1770-1847)

Thomas Phillips painted the Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin in 1825, nine years before Franklin's final ill-fated expedition to find the Northwest Passage in which he and all 128 men of his crew perished. Phillips depicted him as an active naval officer with the confident bearing of a man who had already survived the disastrous 1819 overland Arctic expedition described in his famous narrative. The portrait documents a figure whose subsequent fate would make him one of the nineteenth century's most resonant symbols of British heroic failure, inspiring thirty-two rescue expeditions and enduring popular and literary fascination.

Phillips presents the naval officer with the confident bearing and steady gaze of an experienced Arctic explorer. The careful rendering of the naval uniform and the direct, honest treatment of the features create a compelling image of determination and capability.