Sir Home Riggs Popham

This portraitback to top

The portrait was acquired by the NPG without an attribution though two other Popham portraits from the same source (General and Mrs Popham) were by M. A. Shee. It was lent to the Royal Naval Exhibition by the NPG in 1891, still without an attribution, but appears in the NPG 1896 Catalogue as by Mather Brown, probably on the strength of his later portrait engraved by Anthony Cardon. However the flat treatment of the paint and the awkward right arm are clearly not Brown's as has been pointed out by Dorinda Evans, Mather Brown, 1982, p 222. The sinuous rococo pose was favoured by Arthur Devis in the 1750s and taken on by Gainsborough and Romney in the 1760s and 1770s, but the work is inadequate for any of these artists whose pictures would have been familiar from engravings. The pose has been exaggerated and points to a provincial artist on tour at a naval establishment in about 1783.
It throws an interesting light on the development of naval uniform. Popham was promoted Lieutenant in June 1783 and is shown in the uniform of that date, the picture being painted probably shortly before his departure for South Africa to survey the Kaffraria coast. Naval uniform was altered by an Admiralty order of 17 November 1787, restoring full-dress to lieutenants, the most significant detail being the innovation of the celebrated foul-anchor to the buttons - still uniform today. In Popham's pre-1787 uniform the buttons have a rose or star. A copy of this portrait, in a private Sussex collection, has had gold lace added to the lapels marking Popham's promotion to Master and Commander in 1794 or to Post Captain 1795.

Physical descriptionback to top

Whole-length standing under trees against a rock, cane in right hand, hat in left; lieutenant's full-dress uniform (1768-87), dark blue coat with white lapels, naval buttons with roses, white neckcloth and shirt-frill, buff waistcoat and breeches, gold watch-key and seal on blue ribbon at waist, white stockings, black shoes with gilt buckles; grey powdered hair in queue, grey eyes, pale complexion, sensuous lips; trees, stormy sky and sea with frigate in background.

Provenanceback to top

Given by a descendant, the Right Rev. G. F. Popham-Blyth DD, Bishop in Jerusalem and the East, 1888.

Exhibitionsback to top

'Royal Naval Exhibition', Chelsea 1891 (496), unattributed.

Reproductionsback to top

An engraving is noticed by J. K. Laughton in Dictionary of National Biography but none has been located in the British Museum, NPG or National Maritime Museum.


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.

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