Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne; Henry Clinton, 7th Earl of Lincoln

1 portrait of Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne

Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne; Henry Clinton, 7th Earl of Lincoln, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt, circa 1721 -NPG 3215 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Later Stuart Portraits Catalogue

Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne; Henry Clinton, 7th Earl of Lincoln

by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt
circa 1721
50 in. x 58 3/4 in. (1270 mm x 1492 mm)
NPG 3215

Inscriptionback to top

Signed, lower left: GKneller/f (GK in monogram).

This portraitback to top

The Kit-Cat Club portrait, and the last to be commissioned. The proportion and the spacious, elegant setting [1] are in complete contrast to the intimacy of the other portraits. Dating from very late in Kneller’s career [2] it contains much studio work and was almost certainly commissioned by Jacob Tonson II. The date is indicated by Lincoln’s Garter star. He had only been received into the Order in March 1721, by which time Jacob Tonson I had retired from business and from Barn Elms, where his nephew tended the portraits, and the Kit-Cat Club had virtually ceased to meet. Lincoln had married Newcastle’s sister Lucy in 1717.
Newcastle, despite being forty years his junior, had become a particular favourite with Jacob Tonson I who had spent some months with him at Nottingham Castle in the autumn of 1720. [3]
In the background appears the Belvedere at Claremont (Newcastle’s house in Surrey), designed by Vanbrugh, [4] another member of the Kit-Cat Club who was affectionately regarded by Tonson I.
A copy from Clumber now belongs to the University of Nottingham. [5]
The head of Newcastle from NPG 3215 recurs in a three-quarter-length portrait engraved by J. Faber II (J. Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, 255) after Kneller, [6] and see NPG 5582.

Footnotesback to top

1) In which the drinking glasses have aroused some inconclusive discussion, see J. D. Stewart, Sir Godfrey Kneller, NPG exhibition catalogue, 1971, p iv, and G. L. Treglown and M. C. F. Mortimer, Country Life, CLXX, 1981, pp 46,48.
2) Indeed a letter dated 13 February 1777, from the elderly Philip Lemprière to his nephew William Baker, stated that the portrait of Newcastle and Lincoln was not by Kneller (Tonson Papers).
3) See K. M. Lynch, Jacob Tonson, 1976, pp 158-59.
4) Illus. A. H. Tipping & C. Hussey, English Homes, IV/ii, 1928, p 169; Country Life, LXIII, 1928, p 81; K. Downes, Vanbrugh, 1987, p 364. The original house, designed by Vanbrugh for himself, was sold to the Duke in 1714; Vanbrugh then remodeled it for him 1715-20. It was replaced in the mid-18th century and the Belvedere is all that remains.
5) Clumber cat. 1923, no.232 as copy after Kneller; Illus. The Public Catalogue Foundation, Nottinghamshire 2008, p 211.
6) J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, no.525; J. Kerslake, National Portrait Gallery, Early Georgian Portraits, 1977, p 194, pl.567.

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, pp 204, 246 as c.1721.

Solkin 1993
D. H. Solkin, Painting for Money, 1994, pp 38-40, 280n37.

Stewart 1983
J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, no.526 as c.1721.

Exhibitionsback to top

Manners & Morals, Hogarth and British Painting 1700–1760, Tate Gallery, 1987, no.27.

Reproductionsback to top

J. Faber II 1733 (J. Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, 208/8), the plate cut off horizontally just below his knee, and showing Newcastle’s lesser George hanging down into the margin. Noble1 listed ‘the most exact resemblance of His Grace is a small anonymous etching, with a glass of wine in his hand, in the act of drinking prosperity to the county of Sussex’, surely related to NPG 3215, but no impression has been located.

1 M. Noble, Biographical History of England … being a continuation of the Rev. Granger’s Work, 1806, III, p 19 (J. Kerslake, National Portrait Gallery, Early Georgian Portraits, 1977, p 194).


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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