Maurice-Quentin de La Tour, 'Henry Dawkins', about 1751

This is Henry Dawkins II (1727–1814) of Over Norton, Oxfordshire; Standlynch Park, Wiltshire and Portman Square, London. He was the third surviving son of Henry Dawkins I (1698–1744) and Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Pennant, Chief Justice of Jamaica.

Henry Dawkins was a member of the Jamaica Assembly during the years 1752–8, and a member of its Council in 1758–9. In 1754 he is recorded as having owned (with his brothers William and James) almost 25,000 acres in Jamaica. The family’s fortune was made through the ownership of slaves. By May 1759 he had left Jamaica for England, where he served at various times as Member of Parliament for Southampton, Chippenham and Hindon.

On 24 November 1760 he married Lady Juliana Colyear, daughter of Charles 2nd Earl of Portmore. The couple had eight sons and four daughters. A group portrait of about 1774 by Richard Brompton of The Family of Henry Dawkins (National Trust, Penryn Castle, Bangor, on loan from C.J. Dawkins) shows Henry and Juliana with nine of their children.

It is likely that this pastel portrait of Dawkins was made in Paris, where the artist was based, although there is no definite record of Dawkins visiting the city. A date of between 1750 and 1752 is likely due to the sitter’s young age. Henry’s elder brother James left England for Rome in 1749 and he certainly travelled via Paris, so it is possible that Henry accompanied him there either on that occasion or during another trip in 1751. The style of Dawkins’s wig and costume are consistent with a date of about 1751. His pose, with one hand tucked inside his waistcoat, was one frequently adopted for half-length portraits in the mid-eighteenth century, particularly by English sitters, to signify what François Nivelon had characterised in his The Rudiments of Genteel Behaviour (London, 1737) as ‘manly boldness tempered with modesty.’

Even during his own lifetime Maurice-Quentin de La Tour was regarded as the greatest pastellist of the eighteenth century. Although born in Picardy, he spent almost his entire career in Paris, dominating the market there for portraits in pastel. His extreme perfectionism often placed him in danger of ruining his portraits by overworking them. The relative simplicity of the composition in this portrait may have been due to the limited time that Dawkins had in Paris. The colours, particularly the crimson of the coat, have faded.