Field Marshal Jean Louis Ligonier (Later Lord Ligonier) (1680–1770)

Reynolds painted Field Marshal Jean Louis Ligonier around 1755, depicting the Huguenot-born commander who had risen through the British Army despite his French origins to become one of the most respected military figures of the mid-eighteenth century. Ligonier was born in Castres in 1680 to a Protestant family that fled France following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, one of thousands of Huguenot refugees who brought their skills and professional ambitions to England. His subsequent career — commanding cavalry at Dettingen and Fontenoy, serving as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army from 1757 to 1766 — demonstrated both his military gifts and the relative openness of the British military meritocracy to talent regardless of birth. Reynolds's portrait, now in the National Army Museum, captures Ligonier at the height of his administrative influence during the buildup to the Seven Years' War. The painting reflects Reynolds's emerging command of military portraiture — the calm authority, the suggestion of underlying energy, and the integration of figure and setting that would characterize his finest works in the genre.

The portrait is rendered with experimental pigments that characterizes Joshua Reynolds's best work. Oil on canvas provides a rich ground for the subtle gradations of flesh tone and the textural contrasts between skin, fabric, and background that give the image its convincing presence.