A Portrait of John Mackenzie, Lord Macleod, half-length

Details

George Romney (Lancs 1734-1802 Cumbria)
A Portrait of John Mackenzie, Lord Macleod, half-length
oil on canvas
50 1/8 x 40¼ in. (127.2 x 101.8 cm.)

Provenance

Painted for the sitter, and by descent.
Sir Hugh Lane, Dublin, from whom purchased in 1913 by the following
with Agnew's, London, from whom purchased in 1919 by
Marquise de Ganay; Paris, Georges Petit, 8-10 May 1922, lot 66, to the following.
with Agnew's, London, from whom purchased in 1924 by
John Levy, New York.
with Howard Young Galleries, New York, from whom purchased in 1925 by Arthur J. Secor, by whom gifted in 1928 to the Toledo Museum of Art.

Literature

H. Ward and W. Roberts, Romney, London, 1904, II, p. 98.
R.C. Catrous, 'Collections de Mme. la Marquise de Ganay,' Revue de l'art, XLI, April 1922, p. 288, repr. p. 291.
B.M. Godwin, Catalogue of European Paintings, Toledo, 1939, pp. 294-295.
Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, no. 93, March 1941.
The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, p. 143, pl. 321.

Exhibited

Toledo Museum of Art, Portraits and Portraiture Throughout the Ages, 3-31 October 1937, no. 22.

Engraved

Lithograph in W. Fraser's 'The Earls of Cromartie', Edinburgh, 1876, I, pp. cclviii-cclxix.

Sale room notice

We are grateful to Christopher Bryant for pointing out that the sitter wears a Major General's State Dress uniform known as the "Great uniform", adopted in 1786. The sitter also wears the star and riband of a Commander of the Swedish Order of the Sword. Mr. Bryant also questions whether the sitter attained the Order of the Polar star, as stated in the catalogue.

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Lot Essay

John Mackenzie, Lord Macleod (1727-1789) of Scotland was the eldest child of George Mackenzie, third earl of Cromarty, and Isabella Gordon. During the Jacobite rising of 1745, the family supported Charles Edward Stuart, assembling their clansmen in a regiment to fight on his behalf. Only nineteen, Lord McLeod was captured by loyalist forces and found guilty of treason, but pardoned in 1748 after relinquishing the estates of the earldom of Cromarty. He later joined the Swedish army, and in 1762 he was made a Knight of the Order of the North Star. In 1777, Lord Macleod joined the British army and two years later accompanied a battalion to India.

Romney painted this portrait along with a pendant of Lady Margery Macleod (location unknown) in 1788. Lord Macleod is most likely depicted in the uniform of the 71st Regiment, while the sword and star probably allude to his Swedish rank as a knight of the Order of the Sword and the North Star. This portrait will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist by Alex Kidson, to whom we are grateful for assistance in the cataloging of this picture.

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