The Duke of Bedford was a supporter of the statesman Charles James Fox (1749-1806) and an ally of the Prince of Wales, as well as an agricultural reformer – he established a model farm of 4,000 acres at Woburn, where he carried out pioneering experiments in cattle and sheep breeding and in growing crops. His father was killed by a fall from his horse when Francis was not yet two years old and Francis succeeded his grandfather in 1771 as 5th Duke of Bedford. He attended Westminster School, then Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1780. He went on the Grand Tour in 1784 and returned in August 1786, taking his seat in the House of Lords on 5 December 1787. Francis also promoted urban development and initiated ambitious building projects centred on what became Bedford Square in London. Working with the architect and developer James Burton and his later successor Thomas Cubitt, he ensured that Bloomsbury Square, Russell Square, Tavistock Square, and the surrounding streets became a classic example of Georgian townscape. Lord Holland paid tribute to his judgment, integrity, talents and personal qualities: ‘His heart was affectionate, and he joined to all these qualifications great firmness of mind and the purest simplicity of manners that I ever knew … he was truth itself, … always plain, undisguised truth and real benevolence’.  

This miniature is one of William Grimaldi’s (1751-1830) copies of John Hoppner’s full-length portrait painted for the duke of Bedford and still at Woburn Abbey. Another is in the Royal Collection (RCIN 405408). Grimaldi lists six miniature duplicates – one exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1808, another painted for the prince of Wales, and a third ‘for Duke Francis who was so pleased with it that he gave it to the Duchess of Bedford instead of the Duke of Manchester for whom he had intended it’. An enamel version at Chatsworth ‘took much time and labour and was 18 times in the fire’.

Grimaldi was the son of the 7th Marquess Grimaldi and the grandson of Alessandro Maria Grimaldi, a Genoese nobleman and artist who had settled in England after the bombardment of Genoa in 1684. He succeeded to the title in 1800. Grimaldi was trained by his uncle Thomas Worlidge and worked for several years in Paris (1777-83), although he exhibited regularly in London from 1768 to 1830. He was appointed miniature painter in turn to the Duke and Duchess of York in 1791, and to George IV when Prince of Wales in 1806, and then when king in 1824.

The miniature is signed and dated on the left Grimaldi 1802, and inscribed by the artist on the backing board in ink: His Grace the Duke of Bedford / By W. Grimaldi Enamel and Miniature painter / to their Royal Highnesses the Duke & Duchess of York / London 1802 / Albemarle Street.