Robert Prescott

Inscriptionback to top

Signed bottom right: J B/1776.
The back of the gold case is engraved: General Robert Prescott./Governor of Canada,/returned to England 1799./Died Dec.21.1815.

This portraitback to top

In 1776 Bogle was exhibiting at the RA from a London address and he is not known to have visited America. Prescott must have returned to England that year, after the battle of Fort Washington and before the expedition to Philadelphia in 1777. Bogle subsequently produced at least two replicas, in which the uniform is altered to that of a general officer: one dated 1780 sold Sotheby’s, Geneva, 9 November 1959, lot 73, the other dated 1789 sold Christie’s, 30 April 1996, lot 105. [1]

Footnotesback to top

1) Illus. Secret Passion to Noble Fashion, Bath (Holburne), 1999 (56).

Physical descriptionback to top

Brown eyes, white powdered hair with a black ribbon, wearing a red coat with yellow facings and a silver epaulette, as lieutenant-colonel of the 28th Foot.<sup>1

1</sup> I am most grateful to Andrew Cormack for help in identifying this uniform; cf. Georgian Canada exhibition cat., 1984.

Provenanceback to top

Mrs Fuller-Maitland, Turriff; How of Edinburgh, from whom purchased 1955.

Exhibitionsback to top

Pageant of Canada, Ottawa, 1967 (128); 1776, National Maritime Museum, 1976 (570); Georgian Canada, Toronto, 1984 (240).

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