Philip Bury Duncan (1772-1863) was a scholar at Winchester, 1783-1790 and a Fellow of New College. He founded the Duncan Prize for Mathematics at Winchester. After a career at the Bar he succeeded his brother John Shute Duncan as Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, a post he held from 1829 to 1855.

This is one of a pair of portraits of the Duncan brothers (with Ao36). Both are reduced copies of portraits by William Smith, painted c. 1840. These were reproduced in lithograph by P. Gauci, but the Winchester copies were evidently made from the painted originals. Smith’s portrait of John Shute Duncan has not been located, but his portrait of Philip Bury Duncan (the original of Ao37) is at New College.

Literature: Winchester Archaeological Society, Winchester College: its history, buildings and customs (Winchester, 1926), p. 159; R.E. Poole, Catalogue of Portraits in the Possession of the University, Colleges, City and County of Oxford, 3 vols (Oxford, 1935), ii, p. 166n; A. Bell, ‘Duncan, Philip Bury (1772-1863)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004)

Provenance: Unknown, at Winchester College by the early 20^th century

Location: Warden’s Lodgings