CHATSWORTH SUMMER FINE ART SALE 18th & 19th June 2025

75 Fonsie Mealy’s Est. 1934 “Portrait of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham,”O.O.C., 75cms x 62cms (29½” x 24¼”). (1) In 1772, fresh from painting a portrait of the Prince of Wales, the artist Richard Brompton was commissioned to paint a three- quarter length canvas of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. He depicted the statesman, dressed in red and ermine parliamentary robes of the House of Lords, standing with his left hand outstretched in an oratorical gesture. The present painting, a version of that work, was painted probably around the same time as the original. It was relined in the mid nineteenth century. The original portrait was a gift from the Earl of Chatham to his friend Philip Lord Stanhope, who lived at Chevening House in Kent. Quickly recognized to be a classic image of the British statesman and described by Horace Walpole was a good likeness, it was exhibited the following year at the Society of Arts, where it was described as a portrait of ‘a nobleman in the robes of the house of lords, half length’. Brompton’s portrait was engraved in 1778 by John Keyse Sherwin, who worked both from the original and also a sculpted marble portrait by Joseph Wilton (a version of which is in the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork). In his Early Georgian Portraits catalogue, published in 1977, John Kerslake mentions a three-quarter length portrait by Brompton of William Pitt at Chevening (the original), as well as a copy at Wilton House, and another at the Newhouse Galleries in New York in 1941. A version is recorded as having been given by William Pitt to his physician, Dr. Anthony Addington. Several later versions and replicas are known, including the one now in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Although the version in the NPG came from the Stanhope family, it is not considered good enough to be the original, and is thought to be a nineteenth century copy. The popularity of the Brompton portrait lies both in its being a good likeness, painted from life, and also being a dramatic work of art in the tradition of Titian and Van Dyke. A brilliant orator and political leader, William Pitt served as Prime Minister of Britain during the mid eighteenth century. Largely responsible for Britain’s victories over France in the late 1750’s that resulted in territorial gains in India and Canada, he resigned in 1761, but was again appointed Prime Minister in 1766, when he accepted an earldom. In 1778, just six years after Brompton painted his portrait, Pitt rose from his sick bed and went to Parliament to argue for a more tolerant attitude towards the British colonists in America, advice which was not heeded. Dr. Peter Murray 2025 €6000 - €8000 687. Richard Brompton (1734-1783)