
Enrica Medugno
Senior Sale Coordinator



Sold for £23,040 inc. premium
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Senior Sale Coordinator

Head of Department
Provenance
Formerly in a private collection, Suffolk, UK.
Cornwallis had returned from his American campaigns in January 1782. Early in 1783 he and Lord Rawdon, a fellow officer from the American war, were sitting to Gainsborough for their portraits, for presentation to each other. Cornwallis's picture was hung in the Royal Academy exhibition that year and was considered a good likeness. It is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG281: illustrated and discussed in, for example, C. Bayly, The Raj: India and the British 1600-1947, London 1990, p. 127, no. 152).
An almost identical portrait to ours was with Miles Barton, London, 76 x 64 cm., dated circa 1790.