Sir Joshua Reynolds

Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn and his Mother

c.1768–9

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In Tate Britain

Walk Through British Art: 1760

Free

Artist: Sir Joshua Reynolds 1723–1792
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 2381 × 1816 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1947
Reference: N05750

Display caption

Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn was a hugely wealthy Welsh landowner, and a member of the ‘Honourable and Loyal Society of Ancient Britons’. Reynolds shows him with his mother. In the background is the Welsh fortress of Dinas Bran, associated with the Welsh kingdom before the English conquest in the thirteenth century. Williams-Wynn commissioned two paintings of the same view from the landscape painter Richard Wilson.

Sir Watkin was proud of his descent from the ancient British and Welsh kings, but he was also a sophisticated London gentleman with a grand house in the West End designed by the architect Robert Adam.

Gallery label, September 2004

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