Signed: Pompeo de Batoni, PINX. ROM. 1781.
James Byres of Tonley (brother of sitter); recorded in the dining room of his house in Rome, May 1790; at Tonley House, Aberdeenshire in the 19th century, & until 1911; sale, private collection, Christie's, 1977; Legatt, Sotheby's 1986.
The Art Fund has helped buy 26 works for display at Kenwood House, including Joseph Wright of Derby's Dressing the Kitten and Portrait of John Joseph Merlin by Thomas Gainsborough.
In 2012 a pair of hall benches designed by Robert Adam were returned to the house after being 'lost' for 90 years, thanks to Art Fund support. The seats left Kenwood in 1922 when the Mansfields sold off the house's furniture at auction and for many years their whereabouts were unknown. It was only thanks to a photograph of the entrance hall published in Country Life in 1913 that the benches were able to be identified as originating from Kenwood. They now stand in the antechamber once again.
© English Heritage Photo Library
