BUXTON, Jedidiah (1707–72). PORTRAIT OF JEDIDIAH BUXTON. [London: Killingbeck, ca. 1781]. Half-length portrait mezzotint of the famed self-taught mathematical prodigy, the likeness in a large rectangular frame, with Buxton’s hand thrust into his coat. His name is printed faintly below the image in the lower border. 14½ × 11". Cropped close, with chips to borders, else very good. See BM 1011.5130 and Exemplars, page 96.
Buxton was born in Derbyshire and developed a preternatural fascination with and facility for numbers in his early years. In fact, he was so taken by numbers, mathematics, and counting, that he could focus on little else, and never learned to write, despite being the son of a schoolmaster. Buxton’s facility for lightning calculations and mathematics were such that he developed his own nomenclature for various functions. According to the editors of Britain’s New National Dictionary of Biography (Oxford University Press, 1997): “Buxton, a self-taught ‘mental calculator’, worked out the exact date he would die and on that day bade farewell to all, went home, ate his supper, and died in his chair.”