George Romney

Possibly painted for the sitter but never collected; remained with the artist;

Whereby passed to William Saunders, who organised Romney's posthumous sale;

Stephen Mitchell (1847–1920), Boquhan, Kippen, Stirlingshire;

By whose Trustees sold ('Sold by the Order of the Trustees of Stephen Mitchell, Esq., deceased late of Boquhan, Kippen, Stirlingshire'), 24 November 1933, lot 142 (as attributed to George Romney), for 135 guineas, to Mr Cooper;

With Thomas McLean, Haymarket, London (according to notes from the present owner);

From whom acquired by an ancestor of the present owner.

H. Ward and W. Roberts, Romney, A Biographical and Critical Essay with a Catalogue Raisonné of his Works, London 1904, vol. II, p. 61;

A. Kidson, George Romney: A complete catalogue of his paintings, New Haven and London 2015, vol. I, p. 239, no. 506 (as untraced).

Although this painting has been called a portrait of John Cunningham, 15th Earl of Glencairn (1749–1796), for close to a century, this identification is now in doubt. Glencairn is recorded as having sat for Romney in 1792, however, the resulting portrait was noted as a 'half-length' in the surviving sitter books, which in the artist's terms was a standard measurement of 50 by 40 inches and not the dimensions of this portrait. Furthermore, the uniform present in this painting does not relate to the 14th Regiment of Light Dragoons, the regiment in which Glencairn served. It is possible that this portrait may depict John's elder brother James Cunningham, 14th Earl of Glencairn (1749–1791), although there is no evidence to suggest that James ever sat for the artist. The 14th Earl also had a career in the military and served as a captain in the Western Regiment of Fencibles. A later nineteenth-century engraving of James by Henry Robinson (act. 1827–1872) bears a striking facial resemblance to the sitter in this painting, albeit with minor differences in the costume, therefore making the identification plausible.¹

Andrew Cormack has noted that epaulettes on both shoulders indicate that the officer in this painting belonged to the Grenadier Company of his regiment. There were numerous units that wore yellow facings, collar, cuffs and lapels with silver lace at this period, including the Western Regiment of Fencibles. However, it is impossible to be certain of the precise unit represented here.

We are grateful to Alex Kidson for endorsing the attribution of the painting to George Romney on the basis of digital photographs and to Andrew Cormack for his assistance in identifying the military uniform.

¹ https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1943-0410-768