The sitter was the eldest son of Sir John St Aubyn, 4th Bt and his wife Elizabeth. He succeeded to the baronetcy at the age of fourteen and by 23 he held the office of High Sheriff of Cornwall. He was later MP for Truro, Penrhyn and Helston and became a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Linnean Society, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquarians, a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, and a Fellow of the Society of Arts. He was also Grand Master of the Freemasons. He formed a large collection of minerals, fossils, engravings, etchings and paintings. Part of the collection was sold at auction in 1840 and the sale lasted seventeen days. The rest is now at Pencarrow House, Cornwall. He was an early patron of the Cornish artist John Opie and Sir John was a pallbearer at the artist’s funeral. He had fifteen illegitimate children but later married Juliana Vinicombe of Marazion, Cornwall, the mother of nine of the children. The baronetcy became extinct on his death in 1839 and the entailed estates went to his kinsman Rev. J. Moseworth. However, his Devonport property was inherited by his eldest son, who also received a significant financial sum to provide marriage settlements for his siblings.
The corresponding preparatory drawing for the present miniature, inscribed by the artist 'Sr. J. St. aubyn / after Beechey / 1795', is in the National Portrait Gallery, London, inv. no. NPGD17547. The original large-scale portrait by Beechey hangs at Pencarrow House, Cornwall. Other portraits of the sitter, including another by Henry Bone, dated 1785, his wife and other members of his family are in the National Trust at St Michael's Mount, Cornwall, the ancestral home of the St Aubyn family (see R. Walker and A. Laing, Portrait Miniatures in National Trust Houses, Vol. 2: Cornwall, Devon & Somerset, 2005, pp. 58-61).
We are indebted to Pencarrow House for their assistance with our research.