Sir Hans Sloane’s Pictures: The Science of Connoisseurship or the Art of Collecting?

Although Sir Hans Sloane is often described as the foremost British collector of the eighteenth century, his collecting of pictures has not been thoroughly researched. In this essay, Kim Sloan examines a series of portraits of him and drawings from albums in his collection to see what they reveal about him, his purpose in collecting and commissioning images, the makers of the items he owned, the original purpose and use of those items, and their connection with the Royal Society and its Fellows.