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As you’d expect for a long-serving President of ºìÌÒÊÓƵ and one of our most prominent Fellows, we hold many pictures of (1642-1727) in our art collection. These include five of the fourteen surviving portraits of Newton painted or drawn from life; the others are held at the National Portrait Gallery, in private collections and at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Our representations of Newton include a by (c.1675-1739) currently , a by (1687-1765), a by (1694-1739) and , and another painted in the last few months of Newton’s life. This final portrait of him is the one I’ve always found the most intriguing.

The painting shows the elderly Newton sitting in a high-backed chair wearing a loose gown and a soft cravat. His right hand rests on the arm of the chair, whilst his left holds an open book on his thigh. It’s a formal three-quarter length portrait with Newton shown life-sized and wearing a full wig. The painting is inscribed in the top-right corner: ‘EQUES. / ISAACUS NEWTON. / ANNO ARETATIS. LXXXV / A.C. M.DCC.XXVI’. It’s also signed just above Newton’s left hand: ‘J. Vanderbank. Fecit. / 1726’.

Portrait of Isaac Newton by John Vanderbank, 1727 ()

As Newton is identified as being in his eighty-fifth year in the portrait, the work must have been painted between his eighty-fourth birthday on 25 December 1726 and the date he died, 20 March 1727 (1726 in the Old Style civil calendar). It was commissioned by (1690-1754), one of Newton’s vice-presidents and a later President of ºìÌÒÊÓƵ, who presented it to the Society. He also gave a  to the Society after he was elected President, and bequeathed a to us in his will.

Between the two inscriptions, an unusual symbol is suspended in the air by the right-hand edge of the painting. It shows a serpent forming the shape of a circle with the end of its tail held in its mouth, a symbol known as the . This is an ancient sign often associated with eternal renewal, the cycle of life and death or the biblical Leviathan. It is also seen in alchemical texts, used as a cipher for the Sun and mercury, and associated with the philosopher’s stone.

This motif adds a strange dichotomy to the artwork. In 1727 Newton was both Master of the Mint and President of ºìÌÒÊÓƵ and had published the less than a year before. Yet the ouroboros seems not to speak to these positions of science and leadership, but to his earlier more secretive work on alchemy and theology.

The symbol had never appeared in a portrait of Newton before, and it’s not a motif he’s usually associated with. However, from his alchemical readings he would have been familiar with the ouroboros, and there are certainly echoes of its symbolism in some of his scientific work, such as the violet light revolving round to meet with the red in his colour wheel.

In a produced by the same year, the ouroboros is even more distinct. The two inscriptions present on the painting have been removed, adding greater prominence to the ouroboros which is further illuminated by the print’s greater contrast. The inscription below the image also makes it clear that Martin Folkes commissioned the engraving to be produced as well as the original painting.

Portrait of Isaac Newton by John Faber the Younger after John Vanderbank, 1727 ()

Newton was generally quite fastidious about how he was shown in paintings, refusing to be portrayed in profile and sitting for many flattering portraits that made him appear younger than he actually was. But in this final painting he looks rather unwell, with a sullen expression and a reddish complexion that was probably closer to reality than his more noble countenance in Vanderbank’s earlier portrait. As it was painted towards the end of his life, Newton may have had less control over his image in this work – it may even have been finished after his death.

This could mean that the symbol was not selected by Newton himself but suggested to Vanderbank by Martin Folkes, who was as much an antiquarian as he was a mathematician and astronomer. In the months leading up to Newton’s death, Folkes was working with him to edit his , which would be published posthumously in 1728. This book charts the rise and fall of past empires and uses astronomical observations to date historical and mythological events. This cycle of successive civilisations consuming each other in an endless cycle also has much in common with the ouroboros symbol.

A brief look at Newton’s alchemical writings shows that he did not really mention the ouroboros in works he wrote or quoted from, favouring Hermes’s snake-entwined staff when referring to mercury or the symbolism of serpents. I would argue that the symbol is used in this painting not as an alchemical cipher or a reference to Newton’s obscure theological beliefs, but as a representation of chronology and scientific progress.

Portrait of Isaac Newton by William Hoare, 1734 ()

The ouroboros reappears in , a 1734 profile view showing him encircled by a serpent and with a flaming comet behind him. It was drawn and engraved by (c.1707-1792), and the is held in the British Museum. The comet probably references the , which Newton used to verify Kepler’s laws of motion, and when combined here with the ouroboros also stands in for the regular, predictable nature of the world that can be decoded and understood through rigorous scientific investigation.

In his book , Milo Keynes described the ouroboros in these two portraits of Newton as ‘the alchemical tail-devouring symbol implying eternity because of constant regeneration, and with eternity signifying wisdom.’ But for Newton and Folkes the symbol seems also to have stood for the cyclical nature of the universe, and the successive generations of scientists working to unlock its secrets.