Portrait of Robert Bristow (d. 1737), three-quarter-length, seated, in a grey coat and a red cloak, with a dog, in a wooded landscape

The sitter was the eldest son of Robert Bristow of Micheldever House, Hampshire. He was Clerk Comptroller of the Household and, like his father, sat as M.P. for Winchelsea in several parliaments. In 1709 he married Sarah Warde, daughter of Sir John Warde, and the silk draped over his arm may allude to the cloth trade with China which both families were engaged in. The sitter's younger brother William (1699-1758) travelled to Italy (see J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701-1800, New Haven and London, 1997, p.130-1).