Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

by Louis François Roubiliac
marble bust, 1745
28 3/4 in. x 20 1/2 in. (730 mm x 520 mm) overall
Purchased with help from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund and the Pilgrim Trust, 1985
Primary Collection
NPG 5829

On display in the Entrance Hall on Floor 0 at the National Portrait Gallery

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Louis François Roubiliac (1702-1762), Sculptor. Artist or producer associated with 13 portraits, Sitter associated with 5 portraits.

This portraitback to top

This bust of Lord Chesterfield is signed and dated 1745, ad vivum (from the life). Sittings must have taken place after Chesterfield's return from his diplomatic mission to The Hague (May 1745) and before his departure to take up office as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (July 1745). The bust is boldly classicising, lacking even the drapery around the shoulders customary in most contemporary busts and in this it resembles busts from antiquity.

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Events of 1745back to top

Current affairs

Second Jacobite Rebellion: the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart ('Bonnie Prince Charlie') lands in Scotland and proclaims his father king. Jacobite forces take Edinburgh and march into England as far as Derby but are forced to turn back due to lack of support.
The song later to become the British national anthem, God Save the King, is first performed at the Drury Lane Theatre in London in a setting by Thomas Arne.

Art and science

William Hogarth completes the six paintings of Marriage-à-la-Mode, his satirical take on upper-class eighteenth-century society.
West towers of Westminster Abbey are completed
Satirical writer Jonathan Swift dies.

International

War of the Austrian Succession: the French army defeat Austrian, Dutch and British forces under the Duke of Cumberland at the Battle of Fontenoy.
Madame de Pompadour becomes mistress to Louis XV of France.
Principle of the Leyden jar is discovered by German physicist, Ewald Georg von Kleist.
Artist Giovanni Batista Piranesi publishes the first of his Vedute (Views); a celebrated series of etchings of Rome.

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