Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe (1740-1804), Bibliophile

Bibliophile; sty. Marquess of Bowmont before he succeeded as 3rd Duke 1755; travelled in Europe 1760-62, when his courtship of Christiana, daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, ended as her sister Charlotte became Queen of England; with his ‘lofty presence and felicitous address’ he remained a friend of the King, being made KT 1768, groom of the bedchamber 1767 and KG 1801, but he preferred retirement, being an ‘unwearied reader of romance’; FSA 1797; the sale of his celebrated library lasted forty-five days (18 May-8 July 1812), during which The Roxburghe Club, devoted to ‘the common love of rare and curious volumes’, was founded.


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, National Portrait Gallery, 2004, 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.