The Rt. Hon. Charles Townshend (1725–1767) was the second son of Charles, 3rd Viscount Townshend (1700–1764) and Ethelreda ‘Audrey’ Harrison (c.1708–1788). He married Caroline, Dowager Countess of Dalkeith and afterwards in her own right Baroness Greenwich (1717–1794), daughter of Field Marshal John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll (c.1683–1743) and Jane Warburton (c.1680–1767), on 15 August 1755 at Adderbury, Oxfordshire. At the general election of 1747, Townshend was elected MP for Great Yarmouth on his father’s interest. The following year he sat on the Board of Trade during which time he developed his views on America. Over the course of his political career, he held various senior posts including the position of chancellor of the exchequer (1766–7). Intelligent but untrustworthy, he was known for his spirited oration and is best remembered for his harsh programme of taxation known as the Townshend Acts, which contributed to the eventual loss of the American colonies. 

This is one of three portraits that Reynolds painted of this sitter. The second, a full-length portrait, also at Raynham (RN62), shows Townshend in robes of the chancellor of the Exchequer. A third smaller head-and-shoulders portrait, dating from about 1767, is similar to the present work but depicts the sitter looking at the viewer and omits the papers on the desk.¹

A number of appointments with ‘Townshend’ are recorded in Reynolds’s pocket books in 1755 and in 1757. The pocket book for 1756 is missing. In his ledger Reynolds recorded a payment of 12 guineas before 14 April 1761: this sum equates to the full price he then charged for a ‘kit-cat’-sized portrait measuring 36 x 28 inches, the same size as the present work but larger than the 30 x 25-inch portrait just mentioned.

 The painting was included in the auction in 1904 of the Townshend Heirlooms.² At the time of the sale it featured, with a photograph, in the illustrated newspaper The Graphic, where it was stated that the picture had been ‘bought by Mr. Thomas Wallis (of the French Gallery) for 820 guineas’.³ It was then evidently acquired on behalf of Colonel Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend (1861–1924), the heir presumptive to Raynham Hall. In 1946 it was sold, once more at Christie’s, by Colonel Townshend’s widow, and subsequently reacquired for Raynham.⁴ 

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) was one of the most influential and successful British artists of the late eighteenth century. The first president of the Royal Academy, he delivered a series of ‘Discourses on Art’ which had a profound impact on contemporary art theory and practice. While he held up history painting as the noblest form of art, he was most successful as a portraitist and developed a ‘Grand Manner’ that idealised nature and looked back to antiquity and the old masters for inspiration. Reynolds made experimental use of different materials, which, even during his lifetime, often resulted in noticeable changes to the painted surface. Subsequent campaigns of restoration have at times resulted in further deterioration of the surfaces of his portraits.