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John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich

4 of 50 portraits by Johan Joseph Zoffany

John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, by Johan Joseph Zoffany, based on a work of circa 1764 -NPG 182 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich

after Johan Joseph Zoffany
based on a work of circa 1764
29 in. x 24 in. (737 mm x 610 mm)
NPG 182

This portraitback to top

NPG 182 is adopted from Zoffany’s three-quarter length portrait of Lord Sandwich painted for Trinity House, London, on, or soon after, his appointment as first lord of the Admiralty in 1763. NPG 182 uses the same head, but the perfunctory body and costume are different.
The Trinity House portrait showed him holding a letter conspicuously addressed to himself in his new position at the Admiralty; [1] a version in which the letter is addressed to His Majestie’s Principal Secretary of State, remains with the sitter’s descendants, [2] together with a whole-length adaptation, seated on a terrace, his right hand on his hip, a book in his left. [3] A bust-length version is in a private collection.

Footnotesback to top

1) Destroyed 1939-45; illus. G. C. Williamson & Lady Victoria Manners, John Zoffany, R.A., his life and works, 1920, f.p.38; engraved V. Green 1774 (illus. M. Webster, Johan Zoffany, exhibition catalogue, NPG, 1977, no.17).
2) Illus. Sandwich Papers, IV, 1939, front.; lent to the Foreign Office 1958 by Lord Hinchingbrooke; apparently the picture seen at Knowsley in 1866 by Scharf (Sir George Scharf's Sketch Books, 77/79).
3) Inscribed with the date 1764; illus. Sandwich Papers, I, 1932 front.

Physical descriptionback to top

Blue eyes, white powdered wig with a black ribbon, wearing a deep red coat with a black collar and gold trim; within a painted oval.

Provenanceback to top

Christie’s, 9 July 1864, lot 111, purchased.

Exhibitionsback to top

Wilkes, British Museum, 1969.


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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