Francis Cotes, R.A.

Probably commissioned by the sitter;

Thence by inheritance to his brother-in-law and sister, William Trench, 1st Earl of Clancarty (1741-1805) and Anne Trench, Countess of Clancarty (1746-1829);

Thence by descent to their great-great-great-grandson, Richard Trench, 6th Earl of Clancarty (1891-1971);

By whose Estate sold ("Property of a Gentleman of Title"), London, Sotheby's, 4 April 1973, lot 67;

Where acquired by Roy Miles Fine Paintings, London;

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's Parke Bernet, 21 January 1982, lot 97;

Anonymous sale ("From an important Park Ave NYC Collection"), Larchmont, Clarke Auctioneers and Appraisers, 20 June 2021, lot 10;

Where acquired by the present owner.

E.M. Johnson, Francis Cotes, Oxford 1976, p. 105, supplement no. 14;

J. Coleman, "Luke Gardiner (1745-98): An Irish Dilettante," in Irish Arts Review Yearbook, 15 (1999), pp. 163-164, reproduced fig. 2 (incorrectly described as pastel on paper).

This portrait depicts Luke Gardiner, 1st Viscount Mountjoy (1745-1798), when he would have been twenty years old, wearing the fellow-commoner robes of Saint John's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted on 7 June 1762. Painted by Francis Cotes (1726-1770) in 1765, the portrait was probably commissioned by the sitter and shows his status as a wealthy and well-educated gentleman.

Gardiner was the grandson of Luke Gardiner the Elder (d. 1755), a self-made man of political prominence in Ireland and a banker and property developer in Dublin. The younger Gardiner was evidently prepared from an early age to continue the family dynasty and was sent to Eton in 1759, before enrolling at Cambridge University. Gardiner and his younger brother William (1748-1806) would set out on the Grand Tour visiting Rome, Florence and Venice between 1770 and 1772 with the elder brother commissioning an ambitious historical painting from Gavin Hamilton in Rome, Priam Pleading with Achilles for the Body of Hector.¹ Gardiner would also commission Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) to complete two portraits of himself in 1773, one of which was offered in the same sale as the present work in 1973.² Later that year Gardiner requested from Reynolds a triple portrait of his future wife, Elizabeth Montgomery (1751-1783) and her sisters, the Hon. Mrs. John Beresford (circa 1757-1788) and Viscountess Townsend (1754-1819). The portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1774 and entitled Three ladies adorning a term of Hymen.³

Gardiner was an active parliamentarian having been made a MP for Dublin between 1773 and 1789 and Privy Councilor in 1780. He is acknowledged as one of the main instigators of the Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1781 and was created a Baron in 1789 and a Viscount in 1795. Continuing his grandfather's estates and urban development, he is also recognized as a significant contributor to the architecture of Dublin and constructed much of the Georgian housing in the northern part of the city, including Mountjoy Square, commenced in 1790.

Gardiner died in the Battle of New Ross, County Wexford in 1798, fighting on the government side against the rebels.

¹ Coleman 1999, p. 164.

^{2 "}Property of a Gentleman of Title," London, Sotheby's, 4 April 1973, lot 68.

³ Oil on canvas, 1773, 233.7 by 290.8 cm. Tate Collection, no. N00079.