Sir Francis Bourgeois

The artist Francis Bourgeois (1753-1811), one of the founders of Dulwich Picture Gallery, is shown here as a middle-aged man. He turns to look out at the viewer, his soft gaze and slightly tilted head creating an air of intimacy and approachability. In contrast to this demeanour, Bourgeois wears a more formal striped sash with a medal hanging from it: this is the Polish Order of Merit, awarded to him by Stanislaus II Augustus (1732–98), the King of Poland, in 1791. The previous year, the King had asked Bourgeois and his business partner, the art dealer Noël Desenfans (1741–1807), to help him create a royal art collection for Poland. However, when the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth fell in 1795, the task could not be completed and the paintings remained with Bourgeois and Desenfans, providing the first foundations of the future Dulwich Picture Gallery collection.

Bourgeois’ friend and contemporary, the British artist William Beechey (1753-1839), painted this portrait on the back of a work by the artist Joshua Reynolds (1723–92) which possibly depicts a young Emma Hart (1765–1815), the artists’ model and performer who later became Lady Hamilton. There are copies of Beechey's portrait of Bourgeois in the National Portrait Gallery and Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, but it is not known which one is the prototype. Bourgeois even made his own copy which is also in the Dulwich Picture Gallery collection. After all, Bourgeois was a painter himself, a member of the Royal Academy of Arts, and court painter to George III of England (1738–1820).