Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Whood, Isaac
WHOOD, ISAAC (1689–1752), portrait-painter, born in 1689, practised for many years as a portrait-painter in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was a skilful imitator of the style of Kneller. He was especially patronised by the Duke of Bedford, for whom he painted numerous portraits of members of the Spencer and Russell families, now at Woburn Abbey; some of these were copied by Whood from other painters. At Cambridge there are portraits by Whood at Trinity College, including one of Dr. Isaac Barrow, and at Trinity Hall. His portraits of ladies were some of the best of that date. There is a good portrait of Archbishop Wake by Whood at Lambeth Palace, painted in 1736. Some of his portraits were engraved in mezzotint, notably one of Laurent Delvaux the sculptor, engraved by Alexander Van Haecken. Whood's drawings in chalk or blacklead are interesting. In 1743 he executed a series of designs to illustrate Butler's ‘Hudibras.’ Whood died in Bloomsbury Square on 24 Feb. 1752. The portrait of Joseph Spence [q. v.] prefixed to his ‘Anecdotes’ was engraved from a portrait by Whood.
[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painters ed. Wornum, with manuscript notes by G. Scharf; Scharf's Cat. of the Pictures at Woburn Abbey; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits.]