Primary sourcePaintingc. 1660

Portrait of Thomas Hobbes

Samuel Cooper · c. 1660

An oval miniature portrait of Thomas Hobbes painted from life around 1660 by the court painter Samuel Cooper.

A lifelike portrait of Hobbes painted in his old age, offering a rare direct likeness made during his lifetime.

Ask Thomas Hobbes about this source View the original

Oval miniature portrait in a gilt metal frame with a loop at top. An older man with shoulder-length grey hair, a moustache and short beard, and a white collar looks at the viewer against a dark green background. — Samuel Cooper, Portrait of Thomas Hobbes, c. 1660. Cleveland Museum of Art.

About this source

What it is

This oval miniature portrait, painted around 1660 by Samuel Cooper, shows Thomas Hobbes in his seventies, with thin grey hair, a moustache and goatee, turned slightly to one side and looking directly at the viewer. It is held today at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Why it matters

Because Cooper painted this during Hobbes's lifetime, it offers a rare direct likeness of the philosopher rather than a later imagined portrait. Hobbes, born to humble parents, had by this time become famous as the author of Leviathan, a major work of political philosophy, and had lived through exile during the English Civil War as a royalist.

Look closer

What does the way Hobbes is dressed and posed suggest about how he wanted to be seen?
Why might only the head be fully finished in this miniature?
What can and can't a portrait like this tell us about a person's ideas and life story?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Thomas Hobbes on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

More Thomas Hobbes sources

Meet the AI Thomas Hobbes →

Engraved title page of Hobbes's Leviathan: a giant crowned figure made of many tiny people holds a sword and crozier over a landscape of hills and a city. Below, a central banner bears the title and author's name, flanked by vignettes of castle, church, crown, mitre, cannon, weapons, battle, and a council.

Book

Primary source

Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes · 1651

Engraved frontispiece of the 1642 Paris edition of Hobbes's De Cive. Top panel shows a crowded scene of figures in clouds and a fiery landscape with a winged angel and a group of people. Bottom panel has a central banner titled Elementorum Philosophiae Sectio Tertia De Cive with Latin text, flanked by a crowned female figure holding scales labeled Imperium and a figure with a bow and spear labeled Libertas, with a landscape and the word Religio across the middle.

Book

Primary source

De Cive

Thomas Hobbes · 1642

Line engraving portrait of Thomas Hobbes, a man with long wavy hair, a large white collar, and dark robes, shown in an oval frame inscribed with his name in Latin. Below is a Latin inscription and the printer's line 'London, Printed for Will. Crooke'.

Painting

Secondary source