Lot 158: AN OVAL CARVED WOOD PORTRAIT RELIEF OF JOHN FREIND

AN OVAL CARVED WOOD PORTRAIT RELIEF OF JOHN FREIND
ATTRIBUTED TO GRINLING GIBBONS (1648-1721), EARLY 18TH CENTURY
With indistinct engraved and handwritten inscriptions to the reverse identifying the sitter; in an oval wood frame with a giltwood plaque to the front indistinctly inscribed 'Cui suas artes sua dena Laetus Et Lyram et Vena s...tum ... ire concessit, celerem et medendi Delius usum.'; cracks and very minor losses
7 3/8 in. (18.7 cm.) high; 10½ in. (26.7 cm.) high, overall

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

The present relief depicts Dr. John Freind (d. 1728), scholar, physician, and Tory politician who briefly found himself imprisoned in the Tower for his suspected involvement in a plot to return the House of Stuart to the British throne. It is clearly part of a larger series of near identical portraits of contemporary figures which have been tentatively attributed to Grinling Gibbons, several of which have appeared on the London art market (see Christie's London, 7 July 2005, lot 417 and Sotheby's London, 8 December 1988, lots 302 and 303). Interestingly, an engraving of the present lot was included in a history of members of the New College of Physicians, written by William MacMichael (The gold-headed Cane, 2nd edition, London, 1828, p. 80). The Latin stanza on the frame, written by Freind's friend Anthony Alsop, can roughly be translated as 'To whom propitious Apollo has granted knowledge of his arts and his gifts, both the lyre and the beat of the throbbing vein, and the swift exercise of healing'.