Sir William Lee, 4th Bt MP (1726–1799)
William Hoare of Bath, RA (Eye 1707 – Bath 1792)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
Unknown
Materials
Pastel on paper
Measurements
597 x 445 mm (23 1/2 x 17 1/2 in)
Collection
Hartwell House, Buckinghamshire
NT 1548091
Summary
Pastel on paper, Sir William Lee, 4th Bt MP (1726–1799) by William Hoare of Bath, RA (Eye 1707 – Bath 1792). A half-length portrait, wearing white and gold waistcoat and blue cloak. Sir William Lee was the son of Sir Thomas Lee, 3rd Bt (1687–1749), MP, and Elizabeth Sandys. In 1758 he inherited the family estate of Hartwell and the fortune of his uncle, the Right Hon. Sir George Lee, PC, MP, Treasurer to the Princess of Wales. In 1763 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl Harcourt (1714-1777), but had no issue. His elder sister, Anne (d.1742), whose portrait, likewise in Van Dyck dress, but more doubtfully attributed to Hudson (it must, in any case, have been painted earlier than his), became the second wife of the 1st Lord Vernon, whose third wife was his aunt by marriage, Martha Harcourt. His greatest memorials are the Gothick church (now a ruin), south front, and rooms with Rococo plasterwork by Thomas Roberts (including the Library overmantel framing Reynolds’s portrait of his wife), added by Henry Keene to Hartwell House in 1759–64.
Provenance
By descent until or shortly before acquired by Gavin Henderson and exhibited in the Art of Pastel at the Clarendon Gallery, 1986, no. 23 (Jeffares, p. 243); [Sotheby's 15th November 1990, lot 61, bought for £8,250]; Sotheby's, 15th December 1996, lot 61
Makers and roles
William Hoare of Bath, RA (Eye 1707 – Bath 1792), artist