The bat is of a curiously primitive club shape, longer than normal for the period, and the wicket is lower than the regulation 22 inches. The wicket-keeper prepares to stop the ball with a cloak. Although the painting is signed at Rome, Mount Vesuvius is seen erupting in the background. Sablet, who was Swiss by birth, spent most of his working life in France. The subject was the son of John Hope, merchant banker of Amsterdam. The portrait was painted while, as a young man of twenty-two, he was making the grand tour, studying architecture, and laying the foundations of the celebrated collection of antiquities which he afterwards housed at Deepdene House, Dorking. His grand-daughter, Henrietta Adela, married the 6th Duke of Newcastle.

Provenance

Hope Heirlooms at Deepdene; 7th Duke of Newcastle; Private collector.