Lot 54: ROBERT HUNTER FL.1752-1803

oil on canvas

PORTRAIT OF JAMES FITZGERALD, 20TH EARL OF KILDARE (1722-1773), LATER 1ST DUKE OF LEINSTER

THREE-QUARTER LENGTH, STANDING IN A LANDSCAPE, WEARING A BLUE COAT WITH GOLD TRIM, AND BROWN WAISTCOAT, HOLDING A TRICORN HAT IN HIS LEFT HAND

127 by 102cm., 50 by 40in.

By descent in the family of the Earls of Rose at Birr Castle, Co. Offaly

The sitter was the son of Robert Fitzgerald, 19th Earl of Kildare, and his wife, Mary, first daughter of William O'Brien, 3rd Earl of Inchiquin. Before succeeding to the peerage he served as M.P. for Athy, 1741-44. On the occasion of his marriage in 1746 he was created Viscount Leinster of Taplow, County Buckingham, and in 1761 he was created Earl of Offaly and Marquess of Kildare. He served as Master General of the Ordnance 1758-66 and as Colonel of the Royal Irish Artillery, 1760-66, achieving the rank of Lieutenant General in 1770. A distinguished and powerful statesman, 1766 he was raised to the position of the most senior Irish peer, as 1st Duke of Leinster, at a time when there were no other Irish Dukes. Kildare married Emilia Mary, second daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, and his wife, Sarah, daughter of William Cadogan, 1st Earl Cadogan. She bore him nine sons and eight daughters, and on 10th June 1766 he wrote to his wife remarking that the expenditure he was spending on Carton, County Kildare was a 'folly, considering the number of children we have'. Carton was the principal seat of his father, Robert, 19th Earl of Kildare, and the building works were continued by the present sitter. He and his wife set upon an ambitious programme to landscape the grounds of Carton, favouring the fashion of Capability Brown. The river which ran through the grounds provided a natural focus and in a letter of the 1760s Lady Kildare wrote 'New River is beautifull. One turn of it is a masterpiece in the art of laying out, and I defy Kent, Brown or Mr Hamilton to excel it...' Lady Kildare, having been brought up at Goodwood had evidently absorbed many of the principles of landscape gardening, and the result was one of the most celebrated Georgian gardens. The Duke of Leinster commissioned Thomas Roberts to paint a set of four views of Carton, all dated c.1766.

The present picture relates to a portrait of the sitter by Sir Joshua Reynolds dating from 1753. The two works are almost identical in terms of composition and detail. Hunter was profoundly influenced by the work of Reynolds and it is likely that he had seen the Reynolds portrait since it originally hung at Carton.