James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope

This portraitback to top

The attribution seems securely based on comparisons with other portraits by van Diest of Stanhope and of Field-Marshal Wade. [1]
The armour was identified by Mann as a late sixteenth-century suit from the Tower of London Armouries, once belonging to the Elizabethan soldier and writer Sir John Smythe. [2] It also appears in portraits by Dahl of Richard Beaumont (engraved H. Meyer) and of the 2nd Duke of Ormonde (see NPG 78), and others by van Diest of Field-Marshal Wade (see note 1), Col. James Gardiner (engraved Canot as after van Diest), [3] and two others of Stanhope.
Van Diest painted a number of portraits of Stanhope in which the face masks are nearly identical (although seven face right and three left). Their close similarity suggests a narrow date range; one shows Stanhope in viscount’s robes (i.e. in or after 1718), another is dated 1721, the year of Stanhope’s death.
NPG 6 was presented in 1870 as a replacement for a three-quarter-length from Chevening, showing Stanhope in viscount’s coronation robes, presented to the NPG by the then Chairman of Trustees, the 5th Earl Stanhope, in 1857 as NPG 6. [4] In 1870 Lord Stanhope offered a second portrait of the 1st Earl for the Trustees to consider as an alternative: ‘One picture represented the Earl in Coronation robes, the other the General in what might be considered more characteristic costume, that is in military attire upon the field of battle. The Trustees unanimously decided in favour of the latter…’ (102nd Meeting, 19 March 1870) - and NPG 6 was duly returned to Lord Stanhope. In 1940 it was given by the 7th Earl Stanhope to the Government Art Collection (12).

Footnotesback to top

1) See J. Kerslake, National Portrait Gallery, Early Georgian Portraits, 1977, pp 288-89, pls 824-26.
2) As described by J. G. Mann, Connoisseur, XC, 1932, pp 88-97, 200.
3) Mann also illustrated portraits of Charles, 6th Earl of Strathmore (formerly belonging to the Earl of Moray).
4) Exhibited Art Treasures, Manchester, 1857, British Portrait Gallery 245, and Second Special Exhibition of National Portraits ( ... William and Mary to MDCCC), South Kensington, 1867, no.108, on both occasions lent by the NPG. In the illustrated copy of the catalogue (NPG archive), the photograph is annotated by Scharf Exchanged with Ld Stanhope for a different portrait, i.e. the present NPG 6.

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, pp 326-27.

Provenanceback to top

The Earls of Stanhope, Chevening;¹ presented by Philip Henry, 5th Earl Stanhope (one of the founders of the NPG and Chairman of Trustees) 1870, in exchange for another portrait of Stanhope which he had presented in 1857.

¹ Where sketched by Scharf in 1857 (Sir George Scharf’s Sketch Books, 50:25).


This extended catalogue entry is from the National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Later Stuart Portraits 1685-1714, National Portrait Gallery, 2009, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

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