Portrait of the Earl of Northampton
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| Portrait of the Earl of Northampton | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Pompeo Batoni |
| Year | 1758 |
| Type | Oil on canvas, portrait painting |
| Dimensions | 237.7 cm × 149.2 cm (93.6 in × 58.7 in) |
| Location | Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
Portrait of the Earl of Northampton is a 1758 portrait painting by the Italian artist Pompeo Batoni. The sitter was Charles Compton, 7th Earl of Northampton, a young English aristocrat. He is shown against a Neoclassical backdrop referencing Ancient Rome. He is shown with a whippet on the chair beside him.[1] Northampton was short-lived and died five years after the painting at the age of twenty six.[2]
Batoni was a Rome-based painter who specialised in depictions of visiting Grand Tourists, primarily from Great Britain and Ireland. This work, along with Batoni's picture of Wyndham Knatchbull-Wyndham established him as the pre-eminent portraitist of the visiting elite. Northampton also commissioned a history painting from Batoni the same year, the now lost Hector's Farewell to Andromache.[3] Today the painting is in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, having been acquired in 1950.[4][5]
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