Early Georgian Portraits Catalogue

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), Prime Minister

Chatham's biographers Williams and Tunstall reproduce the main portrait types, and earlier comment is found in the biography by Lord Rosebery. Only three oils, two by Hoare, 1754 and 1766, and the Brompton portrait of 1772 are certainly from life. An allegorical whole length by the American C. W. Peale was painted most probably from the statues from Joseph Wilton's studio ordered by South Carolina and New York in gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766. [1] In Copley's celebrated Death of Chatham (actually Chatham's collapse in the Lords, 7 April 1778) painted 1779-81, now on loan from the Tate Gallery, the figure of Chatham, it has been suggested, is based on E. Bocquet's engraving after an oil by Brompton; [2] many of the peers are from life. A miniature by Jean Rouquet is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Two paintings which perhaps represent the sitter earlier in life, c.1750, appeared at Christie's, 9 December 1927, lot 27, as by Highmore, later at Poltalloch House, 1959, collection Colonel G. Malcolm, and at Sotheby's, 4 June 1959, lot 96, inscribed with the sitter's name. Both await further investigation.
Sculpture forms an important part of the iconography. Chatham himself recommended Wilton to the commissioner for North Carolina, though we do not know when he was first employed. A statue for Cork [3] was finished in 1766 but Wilton's connection with Chatham may go as far back as c.1759,the date on the plinth of the bust in the Scottish NPG. This however might equally allude to the ‘Year of Victories' and not the date of completion. A bust, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum from the Clumber sale, 21 October 1937, lot 344 (one of a pair), is inscribed 1766. In the Duke of Rutland's version [4], inscribed 1780, a happy balance is struck between idealism and realism: the warts, also to be seen in Brompton's oil, perhaps indicate a sitting. Sherwin's engraving after Brompton confirms that Wilton took a mask, the lettering reading: Begun from a Painting by Mr. Brompton but Corrected from a Cast Moulded from his Lordship's face, by Joseph Wilton .... The engraving, dated 27 August 1778, may have been from a death mask since there is now evidence indicating one was taken. [5] The plaster head at Chevening taken from a bust formerly at Stowe [6] is attributed by the late R. Gunnis to Scheemakers who left England for Antwerp in 1771. A Wedgwood medallion is of 1778 [7] and a bust by the otherwise little known Bridges [8] was in his sale, 1775.
The most convincing portrait of Chatham to survive from his last years is the life-size wax by the American, Patience Wright, seen in her studio in 1775 and purchased for Westminster Abbey, 1778. [9] Bacon designed both the monument in Westminster Abbey, 1778, [10] and the statue in the Guildhall, 1782. He was also, according to Scharf, responsible for the profile portrait on a marble vase, 1781, in the Stowe sale, 3 October 1848, lot 100 (36th day), and at Revesley Abbey, 1890. [11] A number of statues by later artists are recorded by Gunnis.

False Portraits
A painting by Hoare, probably of the 1750s, in the London art trade c.1935-9, bears a superficial likeness but on closer comparison with authentic portraits seems wrongly named. A corresponding drawing by Hoare catalogued as the sitter by Binyon, 1907 (1), is in the British Museum. The clue to the sitter's identity, still unresolved, may be the church partially seen in the background.

1) At Annapolis; see R. T. T. Halsey, 'America's Obligation to William Pitt, Earl of Chatham', The Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, June 1918, XIII, pp 138-43.
2) J. D. Prown, John Singleton Copley, The Ailsa Mellon Bruce Studies in American Art, II, Washington, 1966, II, pp 283, 437-8.
3) Reproduced B. Williams, Life of Pitt, 1915, I, frontispiece; the Wilton statue set up in New York, is now owned by the New York Historical Society.
4) Exhibited 'British Portraits', RA, 1956-7 (214).
5) Letter, The Times, 14 January 1936, from Lawrence E. Tanner, Keeper of the Muniments, Westminster Abbey.
6) 6th day, 21 August 1848, lot 771; sold from the Peel collection, 10 May 1900, lot 129 and subsequently reported in the Rosebery collection.
7) Reproduced, E. Meteyard, Life of Josiah Wedgwood, 1866, II, p 186; also Connoisseur, LXI, 1921, p 202. R. Reilly and G. Savage, Wedgwood the Portrait Medallions, 1973, pp 99-100 (as by Flaxman).
8) R. Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851, 1953, p 61.
9) Reproduced B. Tunstall, William Pitt, 1938 opposite p 368; Country Life, CIC, 1952, p 1484; see also Tanner letter, note 7, p 47.
10) Reproduced M. Whinney, Sculpture in Britain 1530-1830, 1964, pl.129b.
11) Sketchbooks of Sir George Scharf, MS in NPG archives, CXXII, f.62v, 63r.


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1977, 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.