Portrait of Viscount Castlereagh, small full-length, in gold coat and black cape, standing in a wooded landscape

This stylish full-length swagger portrait of Robert Stewart, 2nd Viscount Castlereagh (1769-1822), asserts both his position as an Anglo-Irish landowner, and his role in government. The son of Robert Stewart, first Earl of Londonderry, he was born in Dublin, and grew up at the family seat, Mount Stewart, County Down. Having studied at St. John’s College, Cambridge, he was elected Member of the Irish Parliament for Down in 1790. Although a personal supporter of the British Prime Minister, William Pitt, he was staunchly opposed to the Irish policies of the British Government. In 1794 he was elected to the British House of Commons, sitting in the seat of Tregony, Cornwall and on Pitt’s side of the House, and in 1797 became Keeper of the King’s Signet for Ireland. He played an important role in crushing the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and campaigned extensively for the Irish Act of Union which he steered through both parliaments in 1800.
This portrait, stylistically dating from the 1790s, depicts Castlereagh as an elegant, accomplished young gentleman, and was perhaps made to commemorate one of his political achievements in that decade.
Walter Brandt was perhaps the greatest collector of British drawings and watercolours in the latter part of the 20th Century. A merchant banker, he set out between the 1950s and 1970s to acquire works by British artists born before 1800, and his exceptionally good eye meant that these were generally extremely good examples by each artist.