Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds ('Lord Danby')

Inscriptionback to top

Signed, bottom left: J. Kerseboom/& J. vander Vaart fecit/1704.

This portraitback to top

Bearing the white wand as the lord president of the council, an office he last held in 1699, five years before this portrait is dated. Compared with NPG 1472 he wears a longer lace cravat and has no bows on his shoes.
A replica at Arundel Castle is signed J. Kersseboom Fecit/1705. A version inscribed Gibson pinx^t, from Hinton St George, sold Sotheby’s, 11 June 1969, lot 2. [1] A variant offered by Thomas Moore to the NPG in 1858 (Sir George Scharf’s Trustees sketch books 1:18), showing the head slightly more upright and the right hand holding the wand with a different grip, appears to be that with Major Chichester in 1957, from the Brympton D’Evercy sale, 3rd day, 28 November 1956, lot 733 as a nobleman by an unknown artist.
At Kiveton in Yorkshire, a Leeds country residence, Vertue noted (Notebooks, Wal. Soc., XX, 1932, p 36; c.1730?) a picture of the ‘Duke of Leeds Ld Treasurer at length’, presumably either this or the Lely.

Footnotesback to top

1) A portrait of the Duke of Leeds by Gibson ‘drawn when at the University’, was listed at Dupplin Castle 1798 (Sir William Musgrave, MS lists of portraits, British Museum, Add. MSS 6392, f.56, no.173).

Referenceback to top

Historical and Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures belonging to the Duke of Leeds, 1902, no.94.

Simon and Saywell (eds) 2004
Complete Illustrated Catalogue, NPG, ed. J. Simon & D. Saywell, 2004, p 373.

Conservationback to top

Lined; an old tear to left of head.

Provenanceback to top

The 10th Duke of Leeds Trust, from Hornby Castle; lent to the Ministry of Works, Lancaster House, 1930-83 (34/94); purchased by private treaty sale through Michael Tollemache Ltd 1984.

Reproductionsback to top

S. Freeman 1830 (three-quarter length); T. Philibrown c.1840 (bust-length).


This extended catalogue entry is by John Ingamells, one of a limited number of entries drafted in 2010 for the incomplete catalogue, Early Stuart Portraits 1625-1685, and is as written 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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