Edward Smallwell (1721–1799), Bishop of Oxford

Edward Smallwell served as Bishop of Oxford from 1788 until his death in 1799, and George Romney's 1796 portrait, now at Christ Church, captures him three years before the end of his episcopate. Smallwell was a moderate churchman whose career followed the standard trajectory of Georgian ecclesiastical preferment — from Oxford fellowship through cathedral appointments to a bishopric. Christ Church, Oxford held a close institutional connection to the see of Oxford, as the college's cathedral also served as the cathedral church of the Oxford diocese. Romney's episcopal portraits aim for a quality of senior clerical gravity: composed, thoughtful, projecting the dignity of office without ostentation. The 1796 date — late in Romney's London career — shows the artist maintaining professional standards even as his health was beginning to decline toward the retreat to Kendal that would end his active practice in 1799.

The episcopal robes impose a degree of formal compositional structure on the portrait, with the bishop's dress requiring more precise rendering than the plain dark coats Romney favoured for secular subjects. The face receives the most sustained attention, with careful modelling of a man in his mid-seventies. The composition balances the institutional requirements of episcopal portraiture with Romney's preference for psychological directness.