Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, painted around 1783 and held at the National Portrait Gallery, depicts a general whose reputation had to survive one of the most public defeats in British military history: his surrender to Washington and Rochambeau at Yorktown in October 1781, which effectively ended the American Revolutionary War. That Gainsborough was commissioned to paint Cornwallis just two years after Yorktown reflects the British establishment's remarkable capacity to absorb military failure within a narrative of continued institutional prestige — Cornwallis went on to serve as Governor-General of India, Viceroy of Ireland, and Commander-in-Chief India, and his portrait is that of a man whose career was far from over. Gainsborough's handling gives the general the formal military dignity that such official portraits required while maintaining the directness of characterization that distinguished his work from more hagiographic treatments.

Gainsborough presents Cornwallis with characteristic restraint and psychological insight, using warm tones and fluid handling. The portrait avoids the heroic posturing of military portraiture in favor of a more honest and sympathetic characterization.