Frederick Charles William Seymour
1 portrait of Leopold I, King of the Belgians
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Regency Portraits Catalogue
Frederick Charles William Seymour
after Jean Baptiste Isabey
1815
3 3/8 in. x 2 5/8 in. (86 mm x 67 mm)
NPG 2422
This portraitback to top
The following text referring to Leopold I is now known to be inaccurate, having been published prior to the re-identification of the sitter as Frederick Charles William Seymour. [Edited: originally The miniature shows the Prince aged about 20-5 in the Russian Hussar's uniform and was probably painted in Brussels or Paris shortly before his arrival in England in 1816 and engagement to Princess Charlotte. His portrait was painted by several artists in England after his arrival. Heaphy's watercolour drawings of 1816 and Lawrence's of c.1817 (both in the Belgian Royal Collection) show him wearing a small dark moustache, though drawings by Chalon and Hayter of the same date, and oils by Dawe (1817) and Lawrence (1821) show him without moustache. In spite of the discrepancy in the colour of his eyes, which were brown, the likeness is sufficiently credible to confirm its authenticity.]
Physical descriptionback to top
Head and shoulders to right in cavalry uniform, brown wavy hair, dark blue eyes, pale complexion, swarthy chin; scumbled background, blue-grey to left, pink-grey to right.
Provenanceback to top
Thomas Wright and given by him 1892.
This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Walker, Regency Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, 1985, 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.