Portrait of Master or Miss Neate, full-length, seated, in a white satin dress, holding a King Charles Spaniel, beside a draped curtain, a lake landscape beyond

The present picture, datable to the mid-1740s, relates to the Portrait of Thomas Neate (1741-1825), Martha Neate and their tutor Mr. Needham in a landscape by the artist, signed and dated 1748, and formerly in the collection Capt. Burnaby Neate. An old and now indistinct label on the reverse is recorded identifying the sitter as the 'child born to Mr. Vanderwall after his marriage to Mrs. Neate' [sic]. The sitter is possibly Harris Neate, who married Martha Van de Wall (1743-1828) in the early 1760s by whom he had a daughter, also Martha, who died unmarried. Harris Neate seems to have died by 1766 when his widow remarried John Williams of Pant Howel, a wealthy landowner in Pembrokeshire (see F. Jones, 'The Families of Talyerwth and Pant Howel', The Camarthenshire Antiquary, 1987, pp. 35-37).

The present portrait is one of a small number of early portraits executed before Reynolds left for Italy in 1749.