William, Duke of Gloucester

Inscriptionback to top

Original canvas inscribed verso: Sr G Kneller No: 5/Duke of Gloucester Son to Q: Ann, who died in ye: 13th year of his age in the arms of the Hon:ble Jas: Vernon.//A Present from the Queen.//Heirloom.<sup>1

1</sup> A 19th-century label verso reads ... dashwood heirloom no.8.

This portraitback to top

The attribution to Kneller, recorded in the old inscription, seems untenable; conceivably by William Claret who painted the Duke more than once. Another version is at Frederiksborg (2604).

Referenceback to top

Farrer 1921
E. Farrer, Portraits in Suffolk Houses (East), 1921, p 189, no.73 (at Wherstead Park in 1907).

Simon & Saywell (eds.) 2004
Complete Illustrated Catalogue, NPG, ed. J. Simon & D. Saywell, 2004, p 250.

Provenanceback to top

James Vernon (1646-1727); by descent to his granddaughter Arethusa Vernon (d. 1860) who married Sir Robert Harland (1765-1848) of Wherstead Park, Suffolk; Charles Edmund Dashwood (1857-1935);¹ his niece Mrs I. H. Wilson, by whom bequeathed 1978 (see also Queen Anne NPG 5227, Vernon NPG 5226).

¹ Who sold a number of pictures from Wherstead at Christie’s, 26 June 1914, lots 89-115 (The Dashwood Heirlooms, removed from Wherstead Park ... sold by direction of Charles E. Dashwood, with the consent of his Trustee and of the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice) and Sotheby’s, 11 December 1929, lots 63-66; Mrs Wilson sold others at Sotheby’s, 27 July 1938, lots 129-45.

Exhibitionsback to top

Government loan, Geneva, 1984–87.


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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