This engraving portrays Sir John Evelyn (1620-1706), the English writer known for his publications on culture, politics and the arts. Evelyn commissioned this portrait by Nanteuil whilst visiting Paris during the early 1650s. It is set in a simple oval and rests on an architectural plinth that is covered with Evelyn’s writings. Evelyn was particularly known for his treatise on trees, Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest Trees, written in 1664. The fourth edition (1706) appeared just after his death and featured this engraving which had been produced more than fifty years earlier.
