The sitter in the present portrait is possibly John Prideaux Basset (1740–1756), the son of John Pendarves Basset (1713–1739) of Tehidy Park,¹ Cornwall and Anne Prideaux (1718–1782), daughter of Anne Hawkins and Sir Edmund Prideaux, fifth Baronet of Netherton. Basset, whose father died before his birth, came from one of the wealthiest families in Cornwall, with a fortune derived from minerals and tin mines. It is therefore unsurprising that he is named among the subscribers to William Borlase’s Observations on the Antiquities Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall, published in 1754, where he is listed as subscribing to no less than twenty copies. He died at the age of sixteen, when a pupil at Eton College. An elaborate funeral procession was arranged for the journey by foot from Slough to his place of rest in the family vault at Illogan, Cornwall.²

The identification of the sitter as Basset relies on the similarity of the boy’s features to a portrait by Ramsay of a slightly older Basset in pink ‘Van Dyck’ dress with a whippet, which was at the family home at Tehidy until sold in 1920 (fig. 1). The value the family attached to the portrait, and to Basset himself, is indicated by the mezzotint made from it by John Faber the Younger (fig. 2).