Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham

This portraitback to top

NPG 286 derives from the portrait by Van Loo at Hagley which is set within a painted oval. [1] A copy of the Hagley portrait is at Chevening [2] and another, signed by Thomas Bardwell, at Marble Hill. [3] A version at Stowe school, acquired c.1980, resembles NPG 286, being rectangular, but shows the second wig queue over his left shoulder and more frogging on the coat. [4] An engraving by G. Bickham after J.-B. Van Loo 1751 agrees more closely with this second type.
Another version was at Boconnoc in 1969, presumably the bust-length variant exhibited Third and concluding Exhibition of National Portraits ( ... fortieth year of the reign of George the third to MDCCCLXVII), South Kensington, 1868, no.765, lent by Lord Fortescue.

Footnotesback to top

1) Illus. Apollo, XCVII, 1973, p 546, no.7; Country Life, CLXXXIII, 4 May 1989, p 155.
2) Sir George Scharf's Sketch Books, 63:109 (4 August 1862); exhibited Marlborough and Anne 1934, no.250. Said to have been bought by Lord Mahon at the Stowe sale 1848, but there was only one portrait of Cobham in that sale.
3) See Wal. Soc., XLVI, 1978, p 135, no.38; illus. Colnaghi, English Ancestors, 1983, no.1, p 8; Sotheby’s, 30 October 1985, lot 229.
4) Illus. Stowe Landscape Gardens, National Trust, 1997, p 60.

Provenanceback to top

The 3rd Marquess of Buckingham, the sitter’s indirect descendant; Stowe sale, Christie’s, 21st day, 12 September 1848, lot 83,¹ bought S. M. Peto;² E. L. Betts, Preston Hall, Kent, ‘Portraits from Stowe’, Christie’s, 30 May 1868, lot 19; G. J. France, London, from whom purchased 1869.<sup>3

1</sup> Scharf’s annotated sale catalogue, Christie’s, 30 May 1868, lot 19: ‘sold for 11 guineas No.83, page 158 of the Stowe Catalogue when it fetched £10.10/on sale at France’s Duke St. Manchester Square, 30th April 1869’. Cf. the provenance of the 2nd Earl Temple, NPG 258, in J. Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery, Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, 2004, p 453, likewise a copy/version from Stowe bought at the Betts sale.
² E. L. Betts and S. M. Peto were brothers-in-law and partners in a large engineering business; of their twelve purchases at the Stowe sale, at least ten appeared in this 1868 sale (lots 19-28).
³ France offered to the NPG at the same time ‘Lady Carlingford by Vanderbanck’ which was bought Betts at the Stowe sale, 22nd day, 13 September 1848, lot 175.

Exhibitionsback to top

Beningborough 1979–.


This extended catalogue entry is from the National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Later Stuart Portraits 1685–1714, National Portrait Gallery, 2009, 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.

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