Print. From Van Dyck's published 'book of heads', called the 'Iconographiae' (1641). There are a number of oil versions of Van Dyck's portrait of Digby showing him in this pose - this print being reversed from its usual left-facing aspect - and most famously with a sunflower behind, indicating a mark of royal favour (see BHC2658). His father was executed after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in which he was implicated, but Kenelm was high in the favour of Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, whom he supported in French exile during the Civil War. He had previously also been involved in naval operations in the eastern Mediterranean and was a man whose intellectual curiosity bridged alchemy and the beginnings of empirical science. The inclusion here of what may be a broken or dismantled armillary sphere at back right alludes to this: 'Impavidum Ferient' below translates roughly tghough obscurely as 'they beat fearlessness'. The Museum also has a very fine miniature of Digby by John Hoskins, MNT0135. PAJ3982 appears to be a second copy of this print (no image). [PvdM 10/19]