Sir Edmund Prideaux, 5th Baronet of Netherton (1675–1728) was married to Anne Hawkins (1687–1741), daughter of Philip Hawkins (? 1700–1738). For the tomb monument of Sir Edmund and his wife in Wesminster Abbey, erected by his daughter, Anne Prideaux, see TN25.

The present portrait has been attributed to William Aikman, a Scottish portrait painter who went on a Grand Tour and trained in Italy before settling in London in 1722. There he made literary friends such as Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift and found instant success as a portrait painter, no doubt helped by the death in 1723 of Sir Godfrey Kneller, the leading portrait painter of the preceding few decades. The pose of this portrait is similar to Aikman’s portrait of Sir William Harbord (fig. 1) and dates presumably to about the same time.

It appears to be the portrait located on the Middle Staircase in the inventory of March 1928, and described as ‘Three-quarter length portrait of a gentleman, early Georgian period, full wig, blue full-length coat with gold braid edgings, about 60in by 32in, carved frame’.