Sir William Beechey, The Dashwood children, c. 1789

1789

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

182.2 × 182.8 cm

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-149515

This painting is considered one of the masterpieces of Sir William Beechey and hung in the celebrated Dining Room at Kirtlington Park, regarded as one of the most beautiful Rococo rooms in England, and which is now re-created, without Beechey’s celebrated family group, in the British Galleries of the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Sir Henry Watkin Dashwood, 3rd Bt., inherited the baronetcy on 10 November 1779. A member of Parliament, he represented Wigtown Burghs from 1775-80 and was elected to represent the pocket borough of Woodstock from 1784 – 1820. Presumably he commissioned this spirited portrait of his children playing with their Saint Bernard around 1789, the year that his first payment to Beechey is recorded. At far left, his son Charles sits astride the large dog, hands thrown up in delight. Charles’ curly-haired sister Anna (later Lady Ely) stands behind him and gently supports him, smiling at her eldest brother Henry, seen at far right in red. On the ground, embracing the shaggy dog, is George, later 4th Bt. due to Henry’s premature death in 1803. The portrait hung firstly at Kirtlington Park in Oxfordshire, a Palladian mansion set in grounds designed by Capability Brown, and subsequently at Duns Tew Manor House.