Thomas Button

• The Court at Cadoxton. Historical Matters: Sir Thomas Button

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There are in existence two reputed portraits of Admiral Sir Thomas Button. […] This other portrait has a much more satisfactory history. It is a large oil-painting, measuring 34 by 39 inches, in perfect preservation, and it adorns the walls of the library of Mr. G. M. Traherne at Coedriglan Park, which is about five miles from Cardiff and in the parish of St. Nicholas. There is no clue whatever as to the artist, but his work proves his competence. The picture was acquired by purchase from the descendants of the Admiral, some seventy years ago, by an ancestor of the present Mr. Traherne, and has ever since hung in its present position. It represents an erect, almost full-faced, three-quarter length figure, with chestnut-brown hair and a decidedly pleasing expression. He wears a white ruff round his neck, and white frills at his wrists. His shoulders and chest are protected by what looks like a gorget of metal of a dark colour. The body is clothed in a tight-fitting doublet of greyish-brown material, finely embroidered, buttoned down the front, and with tight sleeves of the same material. The legs, which are shown almost to the knees, are encased in very loose breeches of dark green material, apparently velvet, embroidered in places. Across the body is a greyish-white sash of some light material, probably silk, tied in a large bow-knot over the right shoulder. At his side is a sword. Both arms are slightly extended from the sides, the left-hand resting on a terrestrial globe, the rigfht holding what looks like a short staff or truncheon, one end of which is against the thigh. At the top corners are two smaller pictures, that on the left depicting a ship at sea in full sail, that on the right, apparently a landscape, but it is rather indistinct. At the bottom is the motto,Non mihi sed Patriæ. That the portrait represents a navigator is obvious; while I have the authority of Mr. George Scharf, C.B., Keeper of the National Portrait Gallery, for stating that it is admirably painted, and that it is unquestionably of the date of Sir Thomas Button. Therefore, although there is no absolute proof that it represents the Admiral, there seems to be no good reason to doubt that it does. The motto (which may be translated, "Not for myself, but for my country") does not seem to have been that of the Button family; but this in no way proves that the portrait does not represent Sir Thomas, who may have adopted it personally.

— Miller Christy, in: Christy, Miller , ed. (1894) The Voyages of Captain Luke Foxe of Hull, and Captain Thomas James of Bristol, in Search of a North-West Passage, in 1631-1632, 1, London: Hakluyt Society, p. xxiv-xxvii