Lot 1662 Dα

After a nine-year stay in Rome, William Hoare returned to England in 1737/38 and settled as a painter in the fashionable town of Bath. There, together with William Gainsborough, he became one of the most sought-after portraitists of his time. He painted portraits of George Frideric Handel and the Prime Ministers Robert Walpole and William Pitt, among many others.
We would like to thank Neil Jeffares, one of the greatest experts on pastel drawings, for the attribution of this work to William Hoare. He confirms that this is an autograph replica of a pastel in the collection of the National Trust, Stourhead (inv. no. 730787). The autograph nature of the present sheet can be identified not only from its quality but also due to the handwritten note on the reverse, which identifies it as being commissioned by James Quinn, an actor known to Hoare who lived in Bedford Street between 1748 -51.