Lot 146: DAVID MORIER C.1705-1770

MATERIAL/MEDIUM
oil on canvas

full length, seated on his charger, wearing uniform and the Garter Star, a battle beyond

52 by 42 cm., 20 1/2 by 16 1/2 in.

The sitter was the second son of King George II, by his wife, Caroline, daughter of Johann Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach. He entered the army shortly before the outbreak of the War of Austrian Succession, and between 1740-57 he served as Colonel of the Coldstream Guards, 1st Foot Guards, and of the 15th Dragoons. He was promoted in 1743 to Lieutenant-General and was wounded at the Battle of Dettingen in the same year. He became Captain-General of the army, 1744-45 and was in command at the battles of Fontenoy, where he was defeated by the French, and Culloden, where he successfully defeated the Jacobite rising. In the Seven Years War he signed a capitulation to the French, called the Convention of Kloster-Zeven, an act which led to his resignation of all military command. The Duke of Cumberland was Morier's most significant patron. Morier was in his service by 1748, and he painted a series of military portraits of soldiers in the uniforms of the British army.