A full-length portrait of Augustus John Hervey, third earl of Bristol (1724–1779) in captain’s undress uniform, 1748–67, wearing a hat and holding a telescope in his left hand. Standing on a beach beside a cliff, he leans on an anchor, which is draped with a captured Spanish ensign. His ship, the ‘Dragon’, 74 guns, appears on the left, flying his commodore’s broad pennant, and there is a distant view of the bombardment of Morro Castle by a squadron under his command on 1 July 1762 during the Siege of Havana. Lettered beneath the image, ‘C. Tomkins. / Augustus John, 3rd Earl of Bristol.’ This portrait was engraved in the mid-nineteenth century by Charles Algernon Tomkins (1821–1905) after Thomas Gainsborough’s oil painting of 1768, which is now owned by the St Edmundsbury Heritage Service and on loan to the National Trust at Ickworth. (Updated May 2019.)
Technique includes etching.