Lot 6: JAN WILLEM PIENEMAN 1779-1853

three-quarter length, standing, wearing a brown frock coat, reading a letter, his left hand resting on a table covered with correspondence

signed c.l.:J.V.Pieneman/Fecit 1823

oil on canvas

141 by 103 cm., 55 1/2 by 40 1/2 in.

By family descent

The sitter was the son of William Trench, Earl of Clancarty, and his wife, Anne, sister of Luke, 1st Viscount Mountjoy. He was M.P. successively for Newtown Limavady, 1796-97, for County Galway, 1797-1800, and 1801-1805, and for Rye, April to July 1807. When the Prince of Orange became King of the Netherlands, Clancarty accompanied him there from England in 1813. He served as ambassador at the Hague 1813-15 and 1816-23, and on 4th August 1815 he was created Baron Trench of Garbally, County Galway. On his return from the Netherlands, in December 1823, he was created Viscount Clancarty, of County Cork. The portrait dates from this year and the letter which the sitter holds refers to him by this title. He married, 9th February 1796, Henrietta Margaret, second daughter of the Rt. Hon. John Staples, and his wife, Harriet, daughter of the Rt. Hon. William Conolly, of Castletown, County Kildare.