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William Cavendish was born in 1720, the eldest son of the 3rd Duke of Devonshire. In 1729 he became Marquess of Hartington and in 1741, the year of his coming of age, he was elected to the House of Commons as mp for Derbyshire. It was in that same year that Hogarth painted this portrait, inscribed "W. Hogarth Pinxt 1741" and "The Right Hon.ble The Marquess of Hartington." Hogarth regarded portraiture as a lesser branch of the art of painting, and the arrival in England in 1737 of the French portraitist Jean-Baptiste van Loo prompted him to combine, with particular venom, his criticism of portraiture with his contempt for foreign artists and styles. Re?ecting upon van Loo's overwhelming success with English patrons, he wrote in his autobiographical notes: Portrait Painting…[is] a branch [of painting] that depends cheifly on much practice and an exact Eye as is plain by men of very midling natural parts haveing been at the utmost hights of it [-it] hath allways been engrossed by a very few Monopelisers whilst many others in a superior way more desirving both as men and artists are every were [sic] neglected… Vanloe a freinch portrait painter…with his…Puffing mono [po]lised all the people of fasheon in the kingdom…so that allour [artists] down went at once…into utmost distress and poverty.1 When he undertook portraits himself, it was partly in a spirit of de?ance and competition, challenging his foreign rivals like van Loo and those who did not consider him capable of "face painting." From 1738 until the mid-1740s he painted portraits on a fairly regular basis, although he never established a proper practice. In contrast to most portrait painters, who often employed a battery of other artists to paint drapery and backgrounds, Hogarth always painted all parts himself. The Marquess of Hartington is a prime example of Hogarth's abilities as a portraitist. The thick impasto on the Marquess's face and in the gold, silver, and red braid on his vest and jacket shows particular con?dence and ?air. Such vivacious passages of paint and color, in which one can almost sense the hand of the artist jabbing at the canvas, lend a liveliness to his portraits that definitively sets them apart from the work of van Loo, in which a smooth-or "licked"-surface gives the sitter an elegant, polished veneer. As a nobleman the Marquess stands out among Hogarth's sitters, most of whom were from the gentry or upper-middle class. Even he appears primarily as a wealthy gentleman; he clearly possesses grace and bearing, and his clothes are ?ne and expensive, but no symbols overtly proclaim his rank. The Marquess, who became Duke of Devonshire in 1755, played a large role in Hogarth's later artistic career. In 1757, after he had become Lord Chamberlain, he appointed Hogarth to the post of Sarjeant Painter to George II (a position for which the artist had been passed over twenty-four years before when Sir James Thornhill stepped down to be succeeded by his son John). The post was extremely lucrative and therefore perfect for the aging, embittered, and increasingly ailing painter.

Julia Marciari-Alexander, This other Eden, paintings from the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1998, p. 44, no. 10, ND1314.3 Y36 1998 (YCBA)