ملف:Portrait of Edmund Pytts Esq. (attributed to Joseph Highmore).jpg

English: Attributed to Joseph Highmore (London 1692 - 1780 Canterbury)

Portrait of Edmund Pytts Esq. (1696-1753), in a green coat, a tricorn under his left arm

Inscribed and dated lower right Edmd. Pytts Esqr. / MP for Worcestershire 1741 / Died 1753

Oil on canvas, unframed

127,2 x 100,6 cm ; 50⅛ by 39⅝ in.

Dated 1741, this sober portrait was probably painted to mark the model’s election to the British parliament. Son of Samuel Pytts, also an MP, and Frances Sandys, daughter of an MP, Edmund Pytts had a prestigious lineage going back to at least 1576, when the Pytts family acquired Kyre, a village in Worcestershire. Edmund Pytts was himself a Knight of the Shire for Worcester.

Turning his confident gaze on the viewer, Edmund Pytts stands in front of a landscape, in the traditional English manner. The delicate and precise brushstroke is however more reminiscent of the Dutch or even the French method. It is therefore probable that this majestic portrait can be attributed to Joseph Highmore. After receiving commissions for portraits of the Knights of the Order of Bath in 1725, Highmore travelled to France and Holland between 1732 and 1734. When he returned, he enjoyed patronage from the Crown.