Mason Chamberlin, R.A.

By descent in the family from the sitter to the present owner.

Joseph Nash (d. 1782) was the eldest son of William Nash (d. 1775), Alderman, Sherriff and later Lord Mayor of London in 1771. The Nash family were successful grocers from Worcester, with William's premises being run from Canon Street, London.

This portrait by Mason Chamberlin, R.A. (1727–1787), one of the founding members of the Royal Academy, shows Joseph holding a prominently placed printed pamphlet. From the text just visible on the cover, it is quite possible that this is a printed version of the proto-abolitionist James Ramsay's (1733–1789) Memorial Suggesting Motives for the Improvement of the Sugar Colonies. This work, which was an important forerunner calling for an end to the use slave labour in the colonies, was widely circulated amongst the elite of London in the 1760s before its final publication in 1778. It is likely that Nash may have come across the work of Ramsay, who was by profession a surgeon, through his father-in-law and fellow merchant John Darker of Gayton (c. 1722–1784), Member of Parliament for Leicester and Treasurer of St Bartholomew's Hospital in London.