Thomas Braithwaite of Ambleside Making His Will

This painting demonstrates the different purposes portraits have served at different periods in history, being created not to flatter the sitter but to act as visual confirmation that Thomas Braithwaite wrote a will. In the 17th century it was thought that if it a man was shown to have put his personal affairs in order, then he would have an easier transition to the afterlife.

Braithwaite is shown looking pallid and drawn, propped up in his bed. Above his head the epitaph records that, ‘Thomas Braithwaite of gentry stock, died 22 December, 1607, aged 31’. To Braithwaite’s left a paper is presented to him on which are written the words, ‘In you, O God, he hoped; in you did he not despair, in you O God he was victorious, he wrote his last…..’. Around the dying man’s head are biblical texts in Latin, French and English.

Looking at this painting, we are made to feel that we have become witnesses to the act, like Braithwaite’s friend George Preston of Holker, whose coat of arms are painted above his head as an additional form of identification.