NEWPORT HOUSE October 20th & 21st 2026

37 Fonsie Mealy’s Est. 1934 270. Pompeo Girolamo Batoni - Italian (1708 – 1787) (attributed) “Portrait of Thomas Earle of Leghorn,”O.O.C., large Portrait of a Gentleman seated with grey wig, blue velvet jacket and ornate gilt thread red waistcoat, seated by an elaborate marble top gilt table with his hand on a document and quill in his other, classical landscape in the background, approx. 109cms x 84cms (43” x 33”), in contemporary gilt frame, label on reverse. (1) Provenance: Sir George & Lady Earle, Abington Rectory, Limerick. Purchased at Mealy’s November 27th, 1995 Lot 378. Note: Thomas Earle (1754–1822) was an English slave trader. He was responsible for at least 73 slave voyages and alongside his brother he transported over 19,000 enslaved people. Of these 3,000 died on board his ships. One of his ships, Annabella, was seized by the British Crown for slave trading with the enemy. He was Mayor of Liverpool in 1787. A collection of papers and documents relating to the Earle family is held by the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool. The papers are of significant importance to the research of the slave trade. The papers were collected by a family member T. Algernon Earle in the 19th century. They were discovered by David Richardson of Hull University, and in 1993 the owner Sir George Earle donated them to the Maritime Museum. €7,000 - €10,000