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Richard West

9 of 126 portraits by Jonathan Richardson

Richard West, by Jonathan Richardson, 1725, based on a work of circa 1725 -NPG 17 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Later Stuart Portraits Catalogue

Richard West

attributed to Jonathan Richardson
1725, based on a work of circa 1725
50 in. x 40 in. (1270 mm x 1016 mm)
NPG 17

This portraitback to top

Wearing the robes of lord chancellor of Ireland with his purse beside him. NPG 17 was first received as by Highmore and of Sir William Wyndham, to whom it bears a strong resemblance, but comparison with a version securely identified as West, formerly at the Inner Temple and presented by the sitter’s grand-nephew, Richard Glover MP, [1] led to the present identification.
The original portrait, of which NPG 17 is a version of uneven quality, is apparently that at Mellerstain which is inscribed, bottom left, Richard West Esqr./Richardson p.1725. A version from the collection of Capt. R. D. Franks was sold Christie’s, 1 May 1963, lot 7 (with a companion piece of an unknown lady), and 25 May 1984, lot 155.

Footnotesback to top

1) Last recorded in the Catalogue of Paintings … of the Inner Temple, 1915, p 90. Seen by Scharf in 1867 when called a ‘duplicate of NPG picture. dull & poor’; at the time NPG 17 was still called Wyndham, but Scharf noted the Inner Temple version was called Richard West (Sir George Scharf’s Sketch Books, 80:23) and must have changed the NPG identity then, or soon after.

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 373.

Provenanceback to top

H. Smart, London, from whom purchased 1857.

Exhibitionsback to top

National Gallery of Ireland 1898–1979.1

1 Listed at Dublin as National Gallery of Ireland 477 (1908 cat., p 429). NPG 17 appeared in none of the early NPG catalogues.


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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