Eli and his friends represent, 1701-style

Rembrandt van Rijn. Oliver Cromwell. Charles II. Christopher Wren. John Dryden. Edward Halley. Maria Theresa. Louis XIV. Jean-Baptiste Lully. John Locke. James II. George I. George II. William of Orange. Jonathan Swift. Even the most Group II-phobic Yalie might agree that this list comprises quite a roster of historical luminaries: kings, queens, artists, writers, architects, composers, and wielders of tremendous power. You might also note that each figure named hails from the century bracketing the year 1701. What does that particularly resonant year, broadcast to current Yalies on everything from Tercentennial t-shirts to crystal commemorative glasses in the Yale Bookstore, have to do with the likes of Louis XIV or Swift? Suzanne Boorsch, the curator of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG), knows. She and her staff recently mounted an exhibition, Circa 1701: Printed Portraits from the Time of Elihu Yale, at the YUAG through Sun., Apr. 1, that salutes Yale's tercentennial by showcasing about 50 printed portraits of contemporaries of Elihu Yale — a literal lineup of nearly all the usual suspects" of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Bookended by the first European settlement in America at Jamestown in 1607 and the birth of George Washington in the colony of Virginia in 1732, the exhibition also traces advances in printing as one of the fine arts. It also includes examples of the exceptional mastery of a wide range of English, French, Dutch, Flemish, and German artists.

COURTESY YUAG Louis XIV, an engraving by the French artist Pierre Drevet, 1697-1739.

In keeping with its emphasis on the era of Elihu Yale, quite literally the first in a long line of distinguished Yalies, this exhibition of renowned and powerful personages also includes several firsts in the history of printing. There's the first mezzotint—a meth-od of engraving a metal plate by systematically pricking its surface with small holes that hold ink—printed in America, a portrait made by Peter Pelham in 1728 of the famed American preacher Cotton Mather, who is credited with persuading Mr. Yale that the institution, at that time called the Collegiate School, might be renamed in gratitude for a sizeable gift. There is also a print considered to be the first portrait from the life of a Native American, a 23-year-old Algonquian from Virginia made in Europe by Wenceslaus Hollar.

While such unique finds may excite the latent art historian in all of us, there's no doubt that the true highlights of the exhibition are the sometimes engaging, sometimes baffling, but always entertaining portraits of the figures that so much of European history and art hinge upon—from the broad forehead and jarringly oversized nose of Cromwell, to the noble, even haughty countenance of Wren, famed architect of St. Paul's Cathedral. There are the round cheeks of Dryden, crowned poet laureate of England in 1668—with a laurel branch in his portrait to prove it. The rendering of the contented and quietly perceptive astronomer Halley makes the sitter seem on the verge of uttering some wise, reassuring words to us as viewers or perhaps to his close friend Isaac Newton. Appearing also is the forthright, self-possessed, albeit undistinguished and even pudgy picture of Anne of Austria, the mother of Louis XIV and supposedly the secret wife of Jules Mazarin, to whom Anne entrusted the government of France in the stead of the young Louis XIV. Louis XIV himself appears several times, first seen as a handsome, energetic king in the prime of his life, exuding power and dynamism, and then as the famously pompous absolutist monarch, setting by his claim of supreme authority: "L'état, c'est moi."

Signaling a drastic shift in politics, there's the chiseled face of Locke, whose lively, alert glance and flowing hair call to mind the images of the young Thomas Jefferson. At the very end of the lineup is the stern, heavy forehead and thick, bushy eyebrows of the satirist Swift.

It's fascinating to examine the story that each portrait in Circa 1701 tells, but it's even more remarkable to consider that the intersection of the celebrated lives featured in the exhibition occurred in the space of a century. More than anything, Circa 1701 leaves you with the sense of what a century it must have been—a century when our own University was a mere collection of brick schoolhouses on the Connecticut coast, unheard of to all of the figures painted on the walls.

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