Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend

Inscriptionback to top

Signed, lower left: G. Kneller Eques f./17[04?]; a later inscription, bottom right: Charles Ld. Townshend.

This portraitback to top

Wearing viscount’s coronation robes.
Kneller was alleged to have painted three whole-length portraits of Townshend, the other two, lots 27 and 28 in the Raynham sale on 5 March 1904, now accredited to Jervas.

Referenceback to top

Duleep Singh 1927-8
Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, Portraits in Norfolk Houses, 2 vols, 1927-28, II, p 211, no.84.

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 349.

Stewart 1983
J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, no.761.

Provenanceback to top

By descent at Raynham Hall; Townshend Heirlooms sale, Christie’s, 5 March 1904, lot 83, bought Colnaghi; Lady Townshend, widow of General Sir Charles Townshend; Christie’s, 4 July 1947, lot 6, bought Leggatt for the NPG.

Reproductionsback to top

E. Harding from a drawing by W. N. Gardiner 1802 (bust-length oval, ‘from the collection at Rainham’, wrongly titled the 1st Viscount Townshend.


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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