Seventy books, paintings and artefacts from the RCP library and elsewhere have been brought together in our current exhibition to illustrate the life and work of the Tudor polymath John Dee (1527–1609). Each member of the exhibition team has picked a favourite object, and explains why they think it’s so intriguing.

Wizard beards and skullcaps

One of my favourite John Dee objects is the steely-eyed portrait of the ‘Queen’s conjuror’ currently displayed centre-stage, welcoming visitors to the exhibition. We are tremendously happy and grateful that the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, lent us this portrait of Dee to watch over the first-ever display of his annotated lost library and ‘magical’ objects.

Dee’s stare is superbly austere, thoroughly in keeping with his posthumous reputation as a keeper of mystical knowledge and angelic conversations. Dee sports a perfect triangle of white beard, voluminous ruff, black robe and skullcap, and thus becomes the archetypal wizard: a visual model handed down from Prospero to Gandalf and Dumbledore. But it is worth comparing Dee’s portrait to those of his contemporaries who also grace our gallery walls, particularly the portrait of eminent physician Theodore de Mayerne (1573–1655). Mayerne was a friend of Dee’s eldest son, the physician and alchemist Arthur Dee (1579–1651), and secured Arthur the position of physician extraordinary to Charles I.

Mayerne also sports a skullcap, dark robes and a splendid white beard, making it abundantly clear that Dee’s wizardly garb is in fact simply standard 17th-century academic, clerical and professional daywear. The RCP’s most famous fellow, William Harvey (1578–1657), is in identical dress in his 17th-century portrait by Sir Peter Lely (albeit with less impressive facial hair). In a similarly arresting portrait of Baldwin Hamey (1568–1640) the skullcap is triumphantly lace-crowned.

The 'wizardly-ness' of our fellows has never been more apparent. My 5-year-old son has always been convinced that I work at the ‘Royal College of Magicians’ and this year (until 29 July when the Dee exhibition closes) I very nearly do.

Emma Shepley, senior curator