Excerpt from The Walpole Society, Vol. 10: 1921 1922

Hagley Hall, Clumber, and other places which I have not been able to visit. In printing my list I have, however, included references to all those works which seem to be of unimpeachable authenticity. These references are placed as far as possible in their proper chrono logical positions, and they are carefully distinguished from those entries for which I am responsible by differences of type. The names of the authorities from which these entries are derived are in each case given within brackets. Many of these references are drawn from the information published in Mr. Collins Baker's valuable book on Le/y. And the Stuart Portrait Painters; but many are drawn from the unpublished information which Mr. R. W. Goulding and Mr. J. D. Milner have most kindly and generously allowed me to use.

My list of Johnson's signed and dated pictures begins, it will be seen, with the year 1619. This is a year earlier than the first dated picture in Mr. Collins Baker's list. But Johnson was born, as we now have reason to believe, in 1593. He was therefore twenty-six years of age when he painted the two portraits with which our list begins, and it is extremely improbable that there are no works from his hand earlier than 1619. But until we know more about Johnson's early life and training than we know at present - or perhaps it would be more correct to say, until we know something of his early life and training, for at present we know practically nothing - it seems to me advisable to regard with considerable scepticism many of those works which have been ascribed to Johnson's early period. Instead, therefore, of disfiguring my list with conjectural and highly debatable matter, I propose to confine what little I have to say on the subject of Johnson's early work to this introduction.

The statement that the portrait of Sir Edward Coke in the National Portrait Gallery was painted by Johnson in 1608 seems to me to stand in need of verification. I see Mr. Baker has put a query mark against this item in his list, so he probably agrees with me.

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