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Laurence Sterne

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- subject matching 'Shadows'

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Laurence Sterne

by Louis Carrogis ('Louis de Carmontelle')
watercolour, circa 1762
10 3/8 in. x 6 7/8 in. (263 mm x 175 mm)
Purchased, 1935
Primary Collection
NPG 2785

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  • Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), Writer and divine; author of 'Tristram Shandy'. Sitter in 16 portraits.

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Louis de Carmontelle made over six thousand watercolour portraits of celebrities and the friends of his patron, the Duc d'Orleans. He drew this portrait in 1762, when Laurence Sterne visited France after successfully publishing the first volumes of his novel Tristram Shandy (1759-67). Sterne liked the image and wrote to his friend David Garrick: 'The Duke of Orleans has suffered my portrait to be added to ... his collection; and a gentleman who lives with him has taken it most expressively'. Watercolours like this one were regarded as a form of drawing rather than painting because they were executed on paper. 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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Current affairs

Birth of George, Prince of Wales (later George IV) on 12 August.
Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle resigns as Prime Minister over foreign policy and is succeeded by the Tory John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute. Many of Newcastle's followers are dismissed over the following months in what becomes popularly known as the 'Massacre of the Pelhamite Innocents'.
'Cock Lane ghost' appears in Smithfield, London.

Art and science

James MacPherson publishes Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem, said to be the work of the third century Scottish bard Ossian, initiating the greatest literary hoax of the century.
Sign-Painters Exhibition is organised in London by Bonnell Thornton to ridicule recently established public art exhibitions.
Artist William Hogarth publishes The Times Plate 1; an anti-war satire.

International

Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau publishes his major works The Social Contract and Emile; influential treatises on society and education. Peter III of Russia is reputedly assassinated as a result of a conspiracy led by his wife Catherine, who succeeds him to the throne as Catherine II (later the Great).
Seven Years' War: The British commander John Manners Marquess of Granby distinguishes himself at the Battle of Manila.

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