Cecil John Rhodes

Image credit: National Portrait Gallery, London

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Imperialist and benefactor; shaped the economic and political development of South Africa; extended British influence into what is now Zimbabwe; compromised by the Jameson Raid (1895), but remained enormously influential; endowed Rhodes scholarships. Rhodes wrote to Mrs Watts while the portrait was being painted, asking her to tell Watts to 'put in the eyes of the Sphinx looking over the desert into eternity, only in my case for empire of the race that I believe to be the best'.

National Portrait Gallery, London

London

Title

Cecil John Rhodes

Date

1898

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

H 85.7 x W 67.9 cm

Accession number

1407

Acquisition method

Given by the artist's executors, 1905

Work type

Painting

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