A half-length portrait to right in blue and orange gown and brown full bottomed wig. The sitter was one of the most celebrated and notorious political pamphleteers of the late 17th century and the first quarter of the 18th century. His output was prodigious although the only well-remembered literary work is ‘Robinson Crusoe’. He was also a stockholder in the South Sea Company. Although some people today think that the story of Crusoe and Man Friday is really a defence of slavery Defoe is also thought to have written ‘The History of the Pirates’ in 1724, an attack on slavery. Image from Royal Museums Greenwich via Wikimedia Commons; public domain.