This is the iconic portrait of Pepys, which he commissioned from John Hayls in 1666, and which he sat for during March of that year. Pepys recalls one such sitting in his diary: “I sit to have it full of shadows and so almost break my neck looking over my shoulders to make the posture for him to work by.”

On Wednesday 16 May, he records collecting the finished portrait – note his alternative spelling of Hayls (the spelling of names being less rigid in the 17th century) – including the costs of both picture and frame: “Thence to Mr. Hales, and paid him for my picture, and Mr. Hill’s, for the first 14l. for the picture, and 25s. for the frame, and for the other 7l. for the picture, it being a copy of his only, and 5s. for the frame; in all, 22l. 10s. I am very well satisfied in my pictures, and so took them in another coach home along with me, and there with great pleasure my wife and I hung them up…”

That l denotes pounds (our £) and the s is an old shilling. Pepys certainly enjoyed his wealth and would no doubt have been a subscriber to the old idiom, “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.”

I’ve just checked whether the phrase would have been known to Pepys in 1666, and indeed it would, being first used in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1621. (Our first rabbit hole entry – there will be more.)

Pepys is wearing his finest “Indian silk” gown (as he termed it; evidently more likely to be Turkish or Persian in origin), a well-groomed periwig, and has in his hand a piece of music that he himself composed. Our famous diarist was also a keen amateur musician.

This Hayls portrait currently hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Interesting fact: it first appeared on the market when it was sold as ‘Portrait of a Musician’ at auction in 1848, by a descendant of Pepys’s. The buyer, Peter Cunningham, identified the subject as Pepys, fortunately, lest it might still be hanging undiscovered in some dusty hallway.

Delve further down the rabbit hole here.