Sir Elijah Impey

Sir Elijah Impey, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1786 -NPG 821 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Sir Elijah Impey

by Sir Thomas Lawrence
1786
12 3/4 in. x 10 7/8 in. (324 mm x 275 mm) oval
NPG 821

Inscriptionback to top

A label, formerly on the back of the frame (now separately conserved), in the artist’s hand: Be pleas’d to keep/this from the Sun & Damp -/TLawrence Pinxt./Aet 16.1786.

This portraitback to top

Sold from the Hastings collection in 1853 as the companion piece to Lawrence’s pastel of Warren Hastings, see NPG 3823. A signed and inscribed duplicate, sold Christie’s, 17 February 1956, lot 2, is now in a private collection.

Referenceback to top

Garlick 1964
K. Garlick, 'A Catalogue of the paintings, drawings and pastels of Sir Thomas Lawrence', Wal. Soc., p 262.

Physical descriptionback to top

Blue eyes, white powdered wig; wearing a royal blue coat with metal buttons, a beige waistcoat and white neckcloth; he sits on a red chair; behind him a brown curtain above the window.

Provenanceback to top

Warren Hastings; Daylesford House sale, Farebrother, Clark & Lye, 22-27 August 1853, lot 821;1 Mrs Charlotte Hartree; her children, William, Charles & John Hartree and Mrs Isabella Rayner, by whom presented 1889.

1 Old label, formerly verso, Bought at the sale of Warren Hastings’ Effects at Daylesford - August/53’, and surely lot 821 (‘companion [to lot 820, see Hastings NPG 3823] portrait of a Gentleman in a blue dress’).

Exhibitionsback to top

Pickpocketing the Rich, Bath (Holburne), 2002 (56).


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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