Captain the Honourable George Edgcumbe, 1720-95 RMG BHC2677

Captain the Honourable George Edgcumbe, 1720-95
A three-quarter-length portrait wearing captain's full-dress uniform, 1748-67. He wears his own hair, tied in a bow at the back and a waistcoat and cuffs edged in gold. He holds the hilt of his sword in his left hand and his right hand is tucked into his waistcoat. His hat is tucked under his left arm, the cockade visible.
George Edgcumbe was second son of Richard, 1st Baron Edgcumbe, and the background appropriately contains several allusions to his life, since the painting was commissioned for the Corporation of Plympton. The two columns probably imply that the setting is the family home, Mount Edgcumbe House overlooking Plymouth Sound, with the guns of the battery below in the left foreground. The ship shown in the distance is the 'Salisbury', 50 guns, of which Edgcumbe was captain in 1747 when he captured a wealthy French East Indiaman. The African long-tailed paradise wydah bird that perches on the trailing ivy growing up the wall, top right, may have come from this ship, since Indiamen often brought home exotic species. Edgcumbe was commodore of a small squadron in the Mediterranean, 1752-56, and was in Port Mahon, Minorca, when the French appeared to attack the island. In 1758 he assisted at Boscawen's capture of Louisbourg and in the following year, in command of the 'Hero', 74 guns, he shared in Hawke's victory in Quiberon Bay. He was also MP for Fowey from 1746 until he became 3rd Baron Edgcumbe and Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall on the death of his elder brother Richard in 1761. He was made Viscount Mount Edgcumbe in 1781 and raised to an earldom in 1789. Because his father was Reynolds' early patron, George Edgcumbe probably knew the artist since they were boys. This portrait was originally commissioned by the Corporation of Plympton and was given to the sitter's son, Richard, 2nd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, in 1832 following the disenfranchising of the borough.
In 1740 Reynolds was apprenticed to the portrait painter Thomas Hudson (1701-90) and after early work in his native Devon travelled to Italy in 1749. In 1753 he set up in London and rapidly began to make a name as portrait painter, profoundly influenced by his time in Italy. He became the first President of the Royal Academy in 1768 and was knighted in 1769. He was the most influential figure of the century in elevating British painting and portraiture. Reynolds borrowed poses from the old masters and by 1759 he had created social portraits in a new style that were deemed fresh and modern, and yet dignified the status of the sitter.

Captain George Edgecumbe, 1720-95