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The Court of Chancery during the reign of George I

7 of 778 portraits matching these criteria:

- subject matching 'Pets and animals - Wild and exotic animals'

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The Court of Chancery during the reign of George I

by Benjamin Ferrers
oil on canvas, circa 1725
29 3/4 in. x 24 7/8 in. (756 mm x 632 mm)
Purchased, 1888
Primary Collection
NPG 798

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At this date the courts of chancery and kings bench were still held in Westminster Hall at the upper end, against the south wall and below the great window. In this portrait the assembly is seated before a blue hanging embroidered with the royal arms. The formality and ceremony of the court is tempered by the crowds jostling to look in on the proceedings and by the inclusion in the foreground of several passers-by and two dogs. The portrait is in a later carved and gilt ogee-section frame of French inspiration, of a pattern widely used in the 1750s and which has been described as 'rococo only at the corners'. More detailed information on this portrait is available in a National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue, John Kerslake's Early Georgian Portraits (1977, out of print).

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Events of 1725back to top

Current affairs

Notorious 'Thief Taker General' Jonathan Wild is hanged at Tyburn. He ran one of the most successful gangs of thieves of the era, while appearing to be the nation's leading policeman.
Pardoned Jacobite leader Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke forms an opposition to the Prime Minister Robert Walpole.
Order of the Bath is founded by King George I.

Art and science

Poet Alexander Pope produces a new edition of Shakespeare, which he rewrites and edits in numerous places.
Philosopher Francis Hutcheson publishes his first major work An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, published in two treatises concerning aesthetics and morality.

International

Russian tsar Peter the Great dies.
Treaty of Hanover between England, France and Prussia.
Composer Antonio Vivaldi debuts the set of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons.
Composer Johann Sebastian Bach debuts his Easter Oratorio in Leipzig.

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