Lord Brudenell (later Marquis of Monthermer) in 1758

 Pompeo Batoni (1709 - 87)

oil on canvas, 99 x 73.5 cm, inscribed on the back, in a later hand, 'John, Marquis of Monthermer'

This cultivated young man (1735 - 70) sits with a mandolin fretted and strung with four double strings and a large sound hole, hardly an appropriate instrument on which to play from Corelli's Sonata for Violin, no. 6 (Op. 5), which lies open on his knee (a copy of the first edition is at Boughton). On 1 March 1758, Henry Lyte, his tutor, wrote to his father George, 4th Earl of Cardigan, from Rome: 'Mengs and Pompeio have both begun my Lord Brudenell's portrait, the former a full-length [q.v.] and the other a half-length. They have promised to finish them out of hand and they will both be fine pictures, the more so as there is great emulation between those two celebrated painters.' On 21 June Lyte informed Lord Cardigan that both paintings would be ready for despatch to England by the next convoy.

PROVENANCE George, 4th Earl of Cardigan (afterwards Duke of Montagu), 1758; his daughter Elizabeth, who married Henry, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch; thence by descent.

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