This painting is considered one of the masterpieces of Sir William Beechey and hung in the celebrated Dining Room at Kirtlington Park, regarded as one of the most beautiful Rococo rooms in England, and which is now re-created, without Beechey’s celebrated family group, in the British Galleries of the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Sir Henry Watkin Dashwood, 3rd Bt., inherited the baronetcy on 10 November 1779. A member of Parliament, he represented Wigtown Burghs from 1775-80 and was elected to represent the pocket borough of Woodstock from 1784 – 1820. Presumably he commissioned this spirited portrait of his children playing with their Saint Bernard around 1789, the year that his first payment to Beechey is recorded. At far left, his son Charles sits astride the large dog, hands thrown up in delight. Charles’ curly-haired sister Anna (later Lady Ely) stands behind him and gently supports him, smiling at her eldest brother Henry, seen at far right in red. On the ground, embracing the shaggy dog, is George, later 4th Bt. due to Henry’s premature death in 1803. The portrait hung firstly at Kirtlington Park in Oxfordshire, a Palladian mansion set in grounds designed by Capability Brown, and subsequently at Duns Tew Manor House.

Shortly after it was sold by the Dashwood family, the painting was purchased by the Toledo Museum of Art, where it remained until its deaccession in 2014.

Sir William Beechey was one of the leading lights of 18th-Century British portraiture. A student of Johan Zoffany, Beechey entered London’s Royal Academy in 1772, and continued to exhibit his lively, colourful portraits throughout his long and successful career. A favourite of the fashionable elite, Beechey was named portrait painter to Queen Charlotte in 1793. His work for the royal family in the following years culminated in the great group portrait King George III and the Prince of Wales Reviewing Troops, for which he was awarded a knighthood. Because Beechey’s meticulous account books survive, many of his paintings can be traced to their original commissions. This group portrait first appeared in Beechey’s records from 1789 as ‘Sir H. Dashwood (paid half) £52 s. 10 d. 0’. Later, an entry under ‘Pictures Painted and Moneys Received’ from 14 August 1818 reveals that the remainder of the painting’s price had finally been paid: ‘Of Sir Henry Dashwood (as last half), for his family, painted twenty-five years ago 42 s. 0 d. 0’ (W. Roberts, op. cit.).