Edmond Halley
- Artist: Richard Phillips
- Date: 1722
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 29 1/2 in. x 24 1/2 in. (749 mm x 622 mm)
- Portrays: Edmond Halley
- Museum: The National Portrait Gallery
- Collection record: The National Portrait Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
In front of you stands Richard Phillips’s portrait of Edmond Halley, oil on canvas in a feigned oval frame finished before 1722. The man sits upright against a simple drapery background; the artist captures his sharp features—nose and lined brow—with firm brushstrokes that echo Vertue’s engraved likeness published a year earlier. Halley, born 1656, was an astronomer who first made his name by predicting the return of the great comet and even designed a diving suit with its own air supply. At twenty‑two he joined the Royal Society—a group whose collaboration helped Newton publish the *Principia*.
See it in person
Edmond Halley is in the collection of The National Portrait Gallery at St Martin's Place, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
