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Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst

14 of 262 portraits by Thomas Gainsborough

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst

by Thomas Gainsborough
oil on canvas, feigned oval, circa 1780
29 7/8 in. x 24 7/8 in. (760 mm x 631 mm)
Purchased, 1862
Primary Collection
NPG 150

On display in Room 14 at the National Portrait Gallery

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), Portrait and landscape painter. Artist associated with 262 portraits, Sitter in 8 portraits.

Related worksback to top

  • NPG D15068: Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst (source portrait)

Linked publicationsback to top

Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1780back to top

Current affairs

Anti-Catholic mob led by Lord George Gordon marches on Parliament to protest against the Catholic Relief Act, leading to the outbreak of the Gordon Riots in London. Six days of rioting are ended by the intervention of troops, with 285 people shot dead.
Dunning's Motion in Parliament attacks the influence of the crown, suggesting that it has increased and ought to be diminished.

Art and science

Royal Academy moves to Somerset House on The Strand, London.
Mrs E. Johnson's British Gazette and Sunday Monitor, the first Sunday newspaper in Britain, begins publication.
Potter Josiah Wedgwood invents the pyrometer; a device used for measuring high temperatures.

International

American War of Independence: British troops under Charles Cornwallis defeat American army under Horatio Gates at Camden, South Carolina. The capture of British army officer and spy John André yields proof that US general Benedict Arnold is in the pay of the British. André is executed in as a spy.
Second Anglo-Mysore War in India between Hyder Ali and the East India Company.
Bolshoi Theatre of opera and ballet is founded in Moscow.

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