JOHN HOPPNER, R.A. | PORTRAIT OF LADY JANE STAUNTON (D. 1823) WITH HER SON, AFTERWARDS SIR GEORGE THOMAS STAUNTON BT. (1781-1859), AND A CHINESE ATTENDANT HOLDING A CHEST OF TEA

Sir George T. Staunton, Leigh Court, Bristol;

By whose Executors sold, London, Christie's, 1 December 1860, lot 105, where retained by the family;

Mrs M.H. Lynch-Staunton, by 1909;

By family descent from the sitters to Captain G.S. Lynch-Staunton;

By whose Executors sold, London, Sotheby's, 8 July 1927, lot 71, for 105 Guineas to Raeburn Gallery;

With Newhouse Galleries, New York and Saint Louis, by 1929.

W. McKay & W. Roberts, John Hoppner, R.A., London 1909, pp. 245-66.

Lady Jane Staunton was the second daughter of Benjamin Collins Esq., a banker in Salisbury. On 22 July 1771 she married George Leonard Staunton, created a baronet on 31 October 1785. Their only son, George Thomas Staunton, was born at Milford House, near Salisbury, in 1781. He accompanied his father to China in 1792; studied the Chinese language, which he wrote and spoke fluently; joined the East India Company at Canton and remained in the service of the Company for many years.

This painting of Lady Staunton and her son George is dated by McKay and Roberts to around 1792, as depicting the almost simultaneous receipt of the letter by Lady Staunton announcing her son's return from China, and his arrival with his Chinese servant at his mother's house. Because McKay and Roberts date this painting so closely to the known date of George's first departure for China, it perhaps marks the child's return from that trip.

The young Staunton went on to serve as M.P. of St. Michael's, Cornwall, 1818-26; Heytesbury, 1830-31; South Hampshire 1832-35; and Portsmouth 1838-52.