Attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A.

Probably Thomas Purvis, Esq., London;

Probably his estate sale, London, Christie's, 1 June 1849, lot 26;

Probably where acquired by Anthony, for 5.5.0 gns.;

Probably anonymous sale ("Property of a Nobleman, and removed from St. James's Square"), London, Christie's, 14 May 1855, lot 34;

Probably where acquired by Hickman, for 13.13.0 gns.;

Probably Charles Heath Warner (1811-1879), Esq., London;

Probably by whose executors sold, London, Christie's, 28 November 1879, lot 101;

Probably where acquired by Durham, for 6.16.6 gns.;

General R. MacKenzie, London, by 1899;

With John Levy, New York;

City Art Museum of Saint Louis, 1922 (inv. no. 106:22);

By whom deaccessioned ("Property of the Saint Louis Art Museum"), New York, Sotheby's, 17 January 1985, lot 140;

Where acquired by a private collector, Virginia;

Thence by descent to the present collector.

Possibly, London, Royal Academy, 1779.

A. Graves and W.V. Cronin, A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, vol. I, London 1899, p. 57, cat. no. 4;

W. Armstrong, Sir Joshua Reynolds, First President of the Royal Academy, New York 1900, p. 192;

J.B.N., "Two Portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds," in Bulletin of the City Art Museum of St. Louis 9, no. 2 (April 1924), pp. 18-20, reproduced p. 19;

E. Waterhouse, Reynolds, London 1941, pp. 70, 116;

D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, New Haven and London 2000, vol. I, pp. 75, 599, cat. no. 120d (as a copy).

ENGRAVED

By Richard Earlom, February 1780; S.W. Reynolds; John Chapman, October 1801; and Henry Thomas Ryall, 1831.

This elegant work depicts the British Navy leader Samuel Barrington (1729-1800), who sat for Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1779. A son of John Shute, 1st Viscount Barrington, and his wife Anne Daines, Samuel Barrington enjoyed a long, distinguished career, eventually rising to the rank of Admiral in 1787. During the Revolutionary War Barrington served as commander in chief of the West Indies, overseeing the British capture of Saint Lucia in 1778. In the present work, the white-haired sitter, depicted half-length, wears a flag-officer's full-dress uniform. His dark blue coat is embellished with wide white lapels trimmed with gold braid and offset by the brass buttons.

Barrington sat for Reynolds several times during November of the following year and produced the prime version of the present composition for the sitter's elder brother, William Wildman, 2nd Viscount Barrington.¹ That version (Greenwich, National Maritime Museum, inv. no. BMC 2534), which has a distinctly lighter background (due to Reynolds's initial use of a fugitive blue verditer pigment that he had been sold as genuine ultramarine). Contemporary versions of Reynolds' prime were given to the six officers who had served under Barrington on the HMS Prince of Wales in Saint Lucia.² The production of multiple near-contemporary versions, all of the same dimensions, complicate the definitive identification of the present painting's early provenance.

Later in life, Barrington was depicted by John Singleton Copley (London, National Portrait Gallery, inv. no. NPG 5519) and Gilbert Stuart (New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery).

¹ Wildman paid Reynolds £52.10s for the painting, which his brother, Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, donated to the Greenwich Hospital in 1824.

² See Mannings 2000, p. 75, cat. nos. 120a-g.