Samuel Horsley

Inscriptionback to top

The original backing paper had affixed the trade label of W. S. Lethbridge/Artist/30/Southampton Street/Strand.

This portraitback to top

NPG 155 was presumably the miniature Lethbridge exhibited at the RA in 1803. In 1863 Mannin said it was painted ‘not long before the Bishop’s death, and was ... exhibited at the Royal Academy’; he also said that Lethbridge had offered it for sale to the Bishop’s family without success (they 'having several other portraits of the Bishop in their possession’). [1]
A half-length canvas copy is in the Westminster Deanery. [2]

Footnotesback to top

1) W. Mannin to Scharf, 26 January 1863; NPG archive.
2) Exhibited Second special exhibition of National Portraits (William and Mary to MDCCC), South Kensington, 1867 (625); accurately listed as ‘bad’ by G. P. Harding, List of Portraits in Various Mansions of the United Kingdom, II, p 131.

Physical descriptionback to top

Brown eyes, white powdered wig, wearing a Bishop’s rochet and chimere.

Provenanceback to top

Purchased from William Mannin¹ 1863.

¹ Who was ‘intimately acquainted’ with Lethbridge; ‘shortly after’ the latter’s death NPG 155 (with NPG 156, see John Wolcot] ‘came into my possession, in which they have remained ever since’ (Mannin to Scharf, 26 January 1863; NPG archive).

Exhibitionsback to top

RA 1803 (870).


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.

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