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

By family descent to Lady Cecil Lowther, Countess of Lonsdale, 1936;

Madame de Vilmorin and Mrs James Black, by whom sold, Christie's, 14th July 1961, lot 99, bt. Fowler

Ellis K. Waterhouse, Reynolds, 1941, p.39;

David Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, 2000, Text Vol. no.1150

The sitter was the son of Sir Thomas Lowther, 2nd Bt. of Marske and Holker and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire. He was educated at Clare College, Cambridge and succeeded to the baronetcy in 1745. He travelled to Italy on the Grand Tour and by July 1751 was in Venice. He then travelled on to Rome where Reynolds included him in the celebrated Parody of the School of Athens (National Gallery of Ireland), standing by Joseph Leeson, later 1st Earl of Milltown. He also appears with Leeson in three of the artist's smaller caricatures (in the National Gallery of Ireland, at Holker and at Bowood). In January 1755 he inherited the substantial Whitehaven estates of his cousin, Sir James Lowther, together with a great fortune in cash and mortgages. The next month he was returned as M.P. for Cumberland in his cousin's place and continued as M.P. until his death on 15th April 1756.

Lowther was a connoisseur of the arts and an enthusiastic collector. With the help of Thomas Patch he bought an important work by Claude, Landscape with Apollo guarding the Herds of Admetus from the Muti family. He also bought Claude's Landscape with the Rest on the Flight in to Egypt of 1645 and several seascapes by Claude-Joseph Vernet. Some of his correspondence with Patch has been published in Francis Russell, 'Thomas Patch, Sir William Lowther and the Holker Claude', Apollo, August 1975, pp.115-119.

At his death he was much lamented by his friends and contemporaries, and a few days later on 20th April, Mrs Delany wrote to Mrs Dewes that 'he was an excellent young man, and did many generous things' (Autobiography, Vol.III, pp. 423-424). On 16th April, Horace Walpole wrote to Henry Seymour Conway that 'he did a thousand generous acts', and on 20th April he wrote to George Montagu commenting that 'he had been as generous at his death as he was in his short life; he had left thirteen legacies of five thousand pound each to his friends'. As a result Reynolds was required to paint several versions of his portrait for his friends.