Portrait of Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823), 1860, after Robert Fulton. Oil on canvas in gilt frame. Cartwright is shown head and shoulders, facing left, in a dark jacket and white neckerchief against a dark background.

This portrait formed part of the Bennet Woodcroft Bequest, which was among the founding collections of the Science Museum. Woodcroft had developed a 'National Gallery of Portraits of Inventors, Discoverers and Introducers of the Useful Arts’ combining gifts, loans and purchases of portraits, while acting as the first curator of the Patent Museum.

An engraving of this portrait was made by Thomas Oldham Barlow and included in the Portfolio of 'Portraits of Inventors of Machines for the Manufacture of Textile Fabrics with Memoirs' published by Thomas Agnew & Sons with an introduction by Woodcroft in 1863 (see 1980-840). Text under the print lists the portrait as from an original by Fulton, lent to Woodcroft's collection.

This oil painting is a copy of the original by Robert Fulton. Fulton began his career as a painter of portraits and landscapes, however Cartwright helped convince him to switch from fine art to the mechanical arts. He would go on to build what is widely regarded as the world’s first commercially successful steamboat and is remembered as one of the United States’ most distinguished engineers and inventors.

The original was lent to Bennet Woodcroft by George Cartwright in December 1859 so that an engraving could be made after it by Thomas Oldham Barlow. Barlow also organised this copy in oil, which was produced to hang in Woodcroft’s Gallery of Portraits within the Museum of Patents. The identity of the copy artist does not survive. Woodcroft sent George Cartwright this oil copy as well as a test print of Barlow’s work when both were in a part-finished state. Cartwright remarked that ‘the engraving promises to be very good and the copy which accompanied it, I think, excellent’ (26 June 1860).

The original painting is now in Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford.