Sir Francis Drake exhibition closes at Buckland Abbey

This week is the last opportunity to see the portrait of Sir Francis Drake at Buckland Abbey, near Plymouth. The portrait is kindly on loan from the National Portrait Gallery until Sunday 29 September.

The painting has been exhibited at Buckland Abbey as part of the National Portrait Gallery’s COMING HOME project. The Gallery lent 50 portraits of iconic individuals to various places across the UK they were most closely associated with.

Since April, the Sir Francis Drake portrait, painted c.1581, has hung in the local sea farer’s former home at Buckland Abbey so local residents could see the Elizabethan portrait on their doorstep.

The painting was created shortly after Drake returned home from his circumnavigation of the globe, a voyage which made him famous as well as very wealthy. He was knighted by Elizabeth I and was able to purchase Buckland Abbey – a country home that befitted his new-found status.

Sir Francis Drake went on to be the Mayor of Plymouth, a local MP, and was granted his own Coat of Arms with a motto that reminded him of his yeomanry birth – sic parvis magna – ‘From small beginnings, great things.’

The exhibition at Buckland Abbey united Drake’s portrait with a portrait of Lady Elizabethan Sydenham – Drake’s second wife – belonging to Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery. Thought to be a marriage portrait, both paintings have been hung together at Buckland Abbey for the first time in over 60 years.

Helen Trebble, Visitor Experience Manager at Buckland Abbey said: ‘It has been a wonderful opportunity for Buckland to be able to borrow this portrait and put it on public display in Drake’s former home where it may have been during his lifetime. We’d like to thank the National Portrait Gallery, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, generous contributions from The Thompson Family Charitable Trust and funds raised at the Gallery’s Portrait Gala in 2017 for making the COMING HOME project possible.’

Coming Home – Sir Francis Drake at Buckland Abbey, closes on Sunday 29 September. Buckland Abbey is open daily 11am, with last admission 4.30pm. Entry is free for National Trust members.