Sir William Chambers

This portraitback to top

NPG 4044 dates after 1770 when Chambers was awarded the Polar Star, and he appears slightly younger than in the Reynolds portrait of 1778. The attribution to Meyer was first made by Graham Reynolds in 1958. [1]

Footnotesback to top

1) As stated in a letter from C. K. Adams to the Pebardy solicitors, 21 February 1958 (NPG archive).

Referenceback to top

Harris 1970
J. Harris, Sir William Chambers, 1970, p 173 (as Victoria and Albert Museum).

Walker 1998
R. J. B. Walker, A Catalogue of paintings, drawings, engravings and sculpture in The Palace of Westminster compiled during 1959-77, 4 vols., 1988, [type-script in NPG archive], no.53.

Physical descriptionback to top

White powdered wig, brown eyes, plum coloured coat, wearing the badge of the Polar Star.

Provenanceback to top

Bequeathed by Miss Eugenie F. E. Pebardy,¹ god-daughter of Frederick Harman, great grandson of the sitter, 1958.

¹ She also owned a pendant containing a lock of Chambers’s hair, miniatures of Chambers’s daughter Selina and her husband, William Innes, two pastel portraits of his daughters by Francis Cotes, and a miniature of his granddaughter, Mrs Samuel Harman, by A. E. Chalon - all now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Exhibitionsback to top

Master Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery, Tulsa, Miami, Washington, Ottawa, NPG, Manchester, Carlisle, Canterbury, 1993-95 (25); Chambers, London, Stockholm, 1996-97 (9).


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.

View all known portraits for Sir William Chambers