Charles Stanhope, third Earl of Harrington and Marcus Richard Fitzroy Thomas

Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1723–1792

1782

Oil on canvas

Yale Center for British Art

A man in ornate armor stands holding a sword, with a young boy to his right. The background features a dramatic sky and a distant landscape. Made after the Earl of Harrington returned to England from Jamaica, this portrait celebrates his military exploits during the final years of Britain’s war with America and France. The painting is part fantasy, part reality. Reynolds depicts Stanhope as a heroic knight clad in armor, which he certainly never wore. However, Marcus Thomas, the young Jamaican man who accompanies him, is very real proof of Britain’s determination to retain its colonial possessions, especially its lucrative sugar plantations. Likely born into chattel slavery, Thomas served in Harrington’s household and sat for Reynolds in June 1782. Thomas later married a