The Chinese Convert

In a gallery featuring seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century ‘courtly portraiture’ at Tate Britain, the spirituality of Godfrey Kneller’s portrait of a young Chinese man, currently on loan from the Royal Collection, provides a thought-provoking contrast to Van Dyck’s glamorous depiction of the youthful Lords John and Bernard Stuart (c.1638).

The quality of Kneller’s portrait ‘Michael Alphonsus Shen Fu-Tsung: “The Chinese Convert”’ alone is likely to have recommended it for selection in the recently expanded Tate displays: ‘Horace Walpole claimed that “Of all his works Sir Godfrey was most proud of the converted Chinese at Windsor”’. But in an era of post-colonialism, at a time when the leaders of the three main political parties in Britain are either Catholic or married to a Catholic, there are other reasons why this portrait is a significant choice for display. It recalls past centuries of religious strife in Britain, and it highlights, in particular, Catholic aspirations in an ambitious colonial period.