Sir Joshua Reynolds P.R.A. 1723-1792

By descent to the sitter's brother, Sir Thomas Stepney, 9th Bt. (1760 - 1825), who died without issue, from whom it passed to his co-heirs, the Cowell Stepney family of Llanelli;
Sir Arthur Cowell Stepney, Bt.;
Catherine, his daughter and heiress, who married Sir Edward Stafford Howard, K.C.B., Cilymaenllwyd, Llanelli;
Margaret, their daughter who married Patrick Murray Threipland;
Thence by descent until 1992

The sitter was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Stepney 7th Bt. and his wife Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Thomas Lloyd of Danyrallt, Carmarthenshire.  He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he met the young Henry Somerset, 5th Duke of Beaufort who became a close friend and in whose interest he became M.P. for Monmouth on 3rd December 1767.  He was to hold the seat until March 1788.

In June 1776 he took up his appointment as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of the Elector of Saxony at Dresden.  He stayed at Dresden for six years and was praised for his diplomacy.  Sir Nathaniel Wraxall wrote in 1778: "I visited Dresden for the second time, a court which was rendered peculiarly agreeable to the English at that period by the hospitality and polished manners of his Majesty's minister to Saxony, Sir John Stepney, one of the finest gentleman who have been employed on missions during the course of the present reign" (Historical Memoirs, Vol I, p. 225).  In 1782 he was transferred to Berlin to replace Hugh Elliot at the Court of Frederick the Great.  He returned home in June 1784 and continued as M.P. until March 1788 when he vacated his seat in favour of the Marquess of Worcester, son of his friend the Duke of Beaufort, who had recently come of age.  The Duke wrote to Pitt on behalf of his friend in 1788 pointing out that Stepney had been "obliged to spend a considerable part of his own fortune to the amount of 8 or £10,000 to support the dignity of his situation" whilst he was abroad as envoy.  Stepney was subsequently granted a pension and offered a peerage which he declined.

His final years were spent abroad and he was amongst the English imprisoned by Napoleon following the end of the Peace of Amiens.  He was freed following a personal plea from Fox.  He died at Turgan in Austria. 

This fine portrait was probably painted in the early 1760s, probably shortly after the full length portrait of his friend, the Duke of Beaufort painted at Oxford in 1760.  The format of the portrait was later repeated for the portrait of the young Earl of Carlisle of 1767.

It is interesting to note that the sitter's great great grandfather Sir John Stepney, 4th Bt. married Justine, daughter and heiress of Sir Anthony van Dyck which could well have influenced the sitter's particular choice of costume for this portrait.