Sir Henry Terne (d.1666)

An oval miniature in watercolour and bodycolour on ivory, in an oval gilt metal display frame with a suspension ring and a metal scroll label below, engraved 'Mr. H. Terne' in black letter. The sitter is shown bust length, turned to his right but looking at the viewer in armour with a white neckcloth. He has blue eyes, a slight dark moustache and wears what is probably a loosely brushed full-bottom brown wig rather than his own hair. He stands against a dark background to the right, possibly a window embrasure, with blue sky and a sea horizon to the left. Terne served in the Commonwealth navy and, in command of the 'Hampshire', 38-guns, was in the fleet that brought Charles II back to England at the Restoration of 1660, the same year he became celebrated for fighting a single handed, nine hour engagement against six Spanish ships. He held a number of further commissions including in command of the 'Dreadnought', 58-guns, at the Battle of Lowestoft against the Dutch in 1665 but was killed commanding the 'Triumph' at the Four Days Battle the following year (1-4 June). This is one of a group of seventeen miniatures purchased for the Museum in the 1940s by Sir James Caird from the Duke of Buccleuch, in this case among the fourteen bought in 1941.
Samuel Cooper