The Right Hon. George Canning, MP (1770-1827)
after Sir Thomas Lawrence, PRA (Bristol 1769 – London 1830)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1822 (after) - 1830
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
876 x 667 mm (34 1/2 x 26 1/4 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Attingham Park, Shropshire
NT 609069
Caption
This is a replica of the portrait commissioned by Thomas, Lord Binning, later 9th Earl of Haddington. Canning entered Parliament in 1794, but some fifteen years later, an argument with Castlereagh, the Secretary of State for War, led to a duel on Putney Heath. After Castlereagh’s suicide in 1822 he was recalled to the Foreign Ministry. He was Prime Minister for the last four months of his life, but his health deteriorated under the pressure, and he died at Chiswick House, in the same room where Charles James Fox had died 21 years before. He was described by Samuel Bamford in Passages in the Life of a Radical: “Canning with his smooth, bare and capacious forehead, sat there [House of Commons], a spirit beaming in his looks like that of a leopard waiting to spring upon its prey”
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Right Hon. George Canning, MP (1770-1827) by Sir Thomas Lawrence, PRA (Bristol 1769 – London 1830), 1822/30. A replica of the half-length portrait of George Canning painted for Lord Binning, later 9th Earl of Haddington by Lawrence, facing and seated with right elbow resting on table, wearing dark coat with white stock.
Provenance
Probably 3rd Lord Berwick collection. 1847 Catalogue p.6; 1861 Inventory p.211. 'Heirloom' 1947 Probate Valuation no.99; bequeathed to the National Trust with the estate, house and contents of Attingham by Thomas Henry Noel-Hill, 8th Baron Berwick (1877-1947) on 15th May 1953.
Credit line
Attingham Park, The Berwick Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
after Sir Thomas Lawrence, PRA (Bristol 1769 – London 1830), publisher
References
Garlick 1989 Kenneth Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence. A complete catalogue of the oil paintings, Oxford, 1989, no. 160 (b). pl. 85