Master Carew

Master Carew is depicted as if an adult. Until the mid-18th century children were portrayed as miniature adults, there was no concept of childhood as a stage of life. The family’s wealth and status are evident in both the subject’s fashionable dress and the choice of the artist Richard Cosway, one of the leading English portraitists of the Regency period.

It has been difficult to identify which branch of the Carew family that Master Carew is associated with. The painting’s date of between about 1785 and 1791 may give us a clue. The artist Richard Cosway was associated with Tiverton, suggesting a possible link with the Carews of Tiverton Castle.