Benjamin West

Exhibited by Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd

Material Oil on canvas

Dimensions 133.5 × 171 cm

Price Available upon inquiry

Status Vetted

About the Work

This ambitious group portrait was made by Benjamin West shortly after his arrival in Britain from Italy. The painting depicts William Young and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Dr Brook Taylor and one of their nine children, almost certainly their youngest daughter, Olivia. Young was a considerable patron of the arts who commissioned two further portraits from West and acquired his Venus Lamenting the Death of Adonis which was shown at the Royal Academy in 1769 and is now in the collection of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

Young is best remembered for his patronage of the Roman painter Agostino Brunias, who accompanied him to the Caribbean in 1764. The present painting demonstrates West’s debt to Anton Raphael Mengs, particularly in the rich, smooth handling of paint and the high local colour of the palette. This, impressive and ambitious early group portrait has descended directly in unbroken line in the Young family from the principal sitter.

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Provenance

Sir William Young, 1st Baronet (1725-1788);
Sir William Young, 2nd Baronet (1750-1815);
Sir William Lawrence Young, 3rd Baronet (1778-1824);
Sir William Lawrence Young, 4th Baronet (1806-1842);
Sir William Norris Young, 5th Baronet (1833-1854);
Sir George John Young, 6th Baronet (1835-1854);
Sir Charles Lawrence Young, 7th Baronet (1839-1887);
Sir William Lawrence Young, 8th Baronet (1864-1921);
Sir Charles Alban Young, 9th Baronet (1865-1944);
and by descent to 2025;
Bonham’s, Old Master Paintings, 3rd December 2025, lot 60;
Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd.