State before letters. A three-quarter-length portrait of George Bridges Rodney (bap. 1718, d. 1792) in flag officer’s undress uniform, 1748–1767, leaning his right hand on the fluke of an anchor in front of an overhanging cliff and a view of the sea. This portrait was engraved by James Watson after Joshua Reynolds’s oil painting of 1756–9, now at Petworth. The plate was initially published by William Wynne Ryland and Henry Bryer in 1762 (see PAG6409) and subsequently re-lettered and republished by John Boydell in 1780 (see PAG6408). This impression is the unlettered state from 1780. It is annotated in pencil ‘Rodney Adml. Rodney / Houston’, mistakenly identifying the engraved as Richard Houston, rather than James Watson. (Updated May 2019.)