Charles Morris

This portraitback to top

The interest of this portrait is confined to the history of the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks, which flourished from 1735 to 1867. [1] Lonsdale (elected 1819) was painter to the Society and Morris (elected 1785, retired 1831) the Bard, ‘the life and soul of the Society’. The donor’s father (elected 1813) was treasurer and secretary until his death in 1858 (and his son had been elected in 1849). Lonsdale painted seven portraits of members for the Society, all dispersed in 1867. NPG 739 was painted expressly for the secretary, probably at the same time as the three-quarter length given to the Society, to judge by the apparent age. In 1884 the donor admitted that NPG 739 was ‘a bad [painting]’ [2] and it was first rejected by the Trustees but, ‘further particulars of [Morris’s] life & of his political influence having been obtained’, it was accepted. [3]

Footnotesback to top

1) See W. Arnold, The Life and Death of the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks, 1871, from which this account has been taken.
2) Letter to Scharf, 27 November 1884 (NPG archive). Stephenson presented at the same time Lonsdale’s portrait of Sir William Bolland (another member of the Beef Steaks and shown in the Society’s uniform), NPG 730, see R. J. B. Walker, National Portrait Gallery, Regency Portraits, I, p 55, II, pl.119.
3) Meetings of 19 November 1884 and 2 May 1885; the reasons for their change of mind may seem tenuous.

Physical descriptionback to top

Brown eyes, short white hair, wearing a white collar and cravat, dark blue coat with brass buttons (the uniform of the Society of Beef Steaks);¹ in his right hand a paper inscribed A Bit of a Thing; a rust-coloured drape above and to the right.

¹ ‘The blue coat with brass buttons, the buff waistcoat, the tights and hessians’, as described by W. Arnold, The Life and Death of the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks, 1871, p 31.

Provenanceback to top

Painted for Henry Frederick Stephenson MP (1790-1858); his son, Sir Augustus Keppel Stephenson QC,¹ by whom presented 1885.

¹ Letter to Scharf, 4 November 1884: ‘painted by Lonsdale for my father & ... now come into my possession on the recent death of my mother’ (NPG archive).

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View all known portraits for Charles Morris