Charles Townshend

Inscriptionback to top

Written in ink on the back of the panel: The Right Hon./Charles Townshend/Chancellor of the/Exchequer.
In a different hand: I give this at my/Death to my Brother/Horace/Georgiana Townshend/Oct 30 182 ...

This portraitback to top

A wax medallion portrait of Townshend by Gosset is listed by Harding at Strawberry Hill c.1804 [1] and is presumably lot 96 of the twenty-second day of the sale, 19 May 1842. The provenance of NPG 1756, which appears to have remained in the Townshend family, suggests that this is another work.

Footnotesback to top

1) G. P. Harding, List of Portraits ... in Various Mansions of the United Kingdom ... MS, c.1804, NPG archives, II, p 194.

Physical descriptionback to top

Slightly hooked nose, full chin, wig tied behind with ribbon; neck-band with lace cravat, cloak round his shoulders over coat and waistcoat; dark cream-coloured wax in high relief on a dull murrey-coloured background.

Conservationback to top

Crack across base of neck; another in drapery at lower left; restored, March, 1968.

Provenanceback to top

Bought, 1915, by the Trustees at the sale of the Sydney Collection, Frognal, Kent, Knight, Frank & Rutley, 10 June, lot 573; bequeathed by the sitter's second cousin, the Hon. Georgiana Townshend (1761-1835), daughter of the first Viscount Sydney, to her brother, the Hon. Sir Horatio (Horace) Powys Townshend (1780-1843); subsequently in the collection of their nephew, John Robert, third Viscount and first Earl Sydney (1805-90); on the death of his widow, Frognal passed to his nephew the Hon. Robert Marsham-Townshend, vendor of the Sydney collection. [1]

1) G. E. Cockayne, The Complete Peerage, revised by V. Gibbs (and others), 1910-59, XII, part I, p 593, note (b).


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1977, 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.

View all known portraits for Charles Townshend