Portrait.

Framed pastel portrait of the American physicist and aeronaut John Jeffries. He financed the first flight across the Channel for himself and French balloonist Jean Pierre Blanchard. This escapade was memorialised by his Narrative, published the following year with an engraving after Russell’s pastel portrait. Jeffries appears in the balloon wearing an outfit he designed to keep warm in the air, and holding a barometer. He died in Boston in 1819, where the barometer and fur hat are preserved.

Although previously thought to be the original Russell pastel exhibited at the RA in 1786, recent analysis suggests that this is a copy, possibly after the engraving by Caroline Watson. The technique is somewhat heavy for a Russell exhibition piece, and seems to follow infelicities in the engraving. The original remains unknown.