William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland

The Duke of Portland had been High Steward of Bristol in 1786 and this portrait was commissioned by the city to hang in the Mansion House in Queen Square. It cost 100 guineas. The portrait narrowly escaped destruction in the Bristol Riots of 1831, when the Mansion House was fired by a mob. Some of the contents were saved before the building was destroyed. Thomas Lawrence was born in Bristol but spent his childhood in Devizes where his father ran a coaching inn.The boy was a prodigy who, by his early teens, supported the family by drawing pastel portraits of society visitors to Bath. He settled in London in 1787, was an immediate success, won royal patronage, was knighted and became the foremost portrait painter in Europe. Although painted early in Lawrence's career, this portrait already displays the bravura and sheer technical skill which would make him the greatest of Regency portrait painters.