Portrait of Jesse Ramsden by Robert Home

Portrait of Jesse Ramsden, by Robert Home, ca. 1791

This portrait of Jesse Ramsden presents an instrument maker at the height of his talent and popularity. Ramsden was London’s leading maker of mathematical instruments in the late 1700s. His products were praised for their precision and quality. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and awarded the coveted Copley Medal in 1795 for his ‘various inventions and improvements to philosophical instruments’.

Robert Home, a portraitist who had trained at the Royal Academy Schools, depicted Ramsden surrounded by instruments. Towering in the background is a large astronomical circle made for Palermo Observatory, one of Ramsden’s many commissions for European customers. By his side is a dividing engine, his invention that enabled the fast and accurate division of scales on small instruments for navigation and surveying.