Notes by Dr. Brian Allen:

Peregrine Bertie, 3rd Duke of Ancaster succeeded his father in 1742. He married first, in 1735, Elizabeth, nee Blundell, widow of Sir Charles Gunter Nicoll who came with a dowry of £70,000. His second marriage, in November 1750, was to Mary Panton (?1735-1793) illegitimate daughter of Thomas Panton (1700-1782). The duke was a privy councilor and lord lieutenant of Lincolnshire from 1742 to his death in 1778. In 1745 he raised and led a regiment against the Jacobites and rose to major general in January 1755; lieutenant general in February 1759 and general in May 1772. He was Lord of the Bedchamber from 1755-65; Lord Great Chamberlain at the coronation of King George III in 1761 until his death and Master of the King’s Horse from 1776-78. The Prime Minister Lord North called him ‘a very egregious blockhead, who is besides both mulish and intractable’. He was also president of the charitable Lock Hospital, London’s first venereal disease clinic.

This picture was recorded as ‘untraced’ in David Mannings catalogue of Reynolds’ paintings but it has recently re-emerged. Although apparently paid for by the duke himself (see below) the portrait may have been given to his father-in-law, Thomas Panton through whose family it has passed by descent (see Provenance above). Panton began as a humble groom in the stables of King George I at Hampton Court Palace and later rose to become Master of the Thurlow Hunt. He was also the trainer of the Duke of Devonshire’s horses and Keeper of the King’s Running Horses at Newmarket after 1750.

Mannings suggests that the portrait was painted in1757-8 based on the recorded appointments in Reynolds’s Pocket or ‘Sitter’ books. Appointments are listed in the Pocket Book for 1757: March 10 (at three o’clock and at four); May 12 (two thirty); May 20 (twelve thirty); Sunday May 29 (eleven thirty); June 3 (three o’clock); December 17 (no time). There is a cancelled appointment on May 16 (midday) and another on March 1 (at ten). In 1758 there are appointments on Sunday March 5 (one o’clock) and March 20 (at two) According to Mannings the portrait seems to have been finished soon afterwards since it appears in a list of pictures to send home opposite the week beginning April 17. Although further appointments resume in November 1758 these almost certainly relate to the whole-length portrait which is still at Grimsthorpe (Mannings no.169).

There is confusion about payments for the picture. Mannings notes that our picture apparently cost 48 guineas but since this sum is very significantly more than the 12 guineas that Reynolds was charging at that time for a 30x 25 inch portrait, known as a ‘three quarters’ (although often called in the period ‘a head’) this payment presumably refers another larger picture (?). To make sense of the larger payment Mannings erroneously assumes that our picture must therefore have been cut down from a larger image based on the paid. There is clearly confusion about which picture(s) the sum of 48 guineas refers to since in his catalogue entry for our picture Mannings refers to two
instalments of 24 guineas, the first sometime before 10 July 1759: ‘Duke of Ancaster – 25.4. Duchess of Ancaster 9 – 9’. This presumably corresponds to a receipt dated 4 May 1757 which is printed in the Historic Manuscripts Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of the Earl
of Ancaster, presented at Grimsthorpe (Dublin, 1907) p.447 :’Received of his Grace the Duke of Ancaster the sum of thirty three guineas, being the half-payment for his Grace’s and the Dutchess’s pictures, by me, J Reynolds’ . A second payment of 24 guineas for the Duke’s portrait and 9 guineas (for the Duchess) was made on 7 June 1760 (see Malcolm Cormack, ‘The Ledgers of Sir Joshua Reynolds’, Walpole Society, XLII (1968-70) p.109) These payments may relate to the later whole length of the Duke and the kit-cat (90 x 70 cm) of the Duchess (Mannings 1699 and 166 respectively) since in the mid-late 1750s Reynolds is known to be charging around 50 guineas for a whole length. It should be noted that at the same time as the Duke was sitting to Reynolds (1757-8) the artist was also painting portraits of both of Mary Panton’s parents, Thomas and Priscilla and these remain at Grimsthorpe (Mannings nos.1392 and 1393). We should also note that our picture
was recorded in the 1950s by John Steegman at Plas Gwyn, Anglesey, erroneously as ‘an early copy’ alongside a companion piece of the Duchess (also 76.25 x 63.5 cm) similarly described, also presumably erroneously, as ‘an early copy’. The latter picture remains untraced.