When George III was asked by Lord Eglinton to sit for the most fashionable portrait painter of the day, Joshua Reynolds, he replied: ‘Mr Ramsay is my painter, my Lord.’ Reynolds tried to gain royal notice with two speculative ventures – a portrait of George III as Prince of Wales (OM 1011, 401034) and an oil sketch for a depiction of his marriage to Queen Charlotte (OM 1012, 404353) – both of which remained on his hands. Reynolds was knighted by George III, made first president of the Royal Academy and Principal Painter to the King upon Ramsay’s death in 1784, but never asked to paint anything. That the Royal Collection has a fine group of Reynolds is entirely thanks to George IV, who commissioned portraits at the end of the artist’s life and acquired many examples of his earlier work like this one.

Fitzroy was a soldier who also served at the court of George II and George III; he was created Baron Southampton in 1780 and from 1780-97 he served as Groom of the Stole to the Prince of Wales. He first sat for this portrait when Colonel Fitzroy in 1760; George IV acquired it from Colnaghi’s in 1818. The sitter is shown wearing state coat of the 1st Foot Guards, holding his hat under his left arm, right arm across his body.