Francis Rawdon, 1st Marquess of Hasting and 2nd Earl of Moira

Francis Rawdon, 1st Marquess of Hastings, painted around 1783 and now in the São Paulo Museum of Art, depicts the young military officer and Anglo-Irish nobleman who had distinguished himself in the American Revolutionary War and would go on to serve in the Napoleonic Wars before becoming Governor-General of India. Gainsborough's late London portrait practice included a significant number of military and aristocratic subjects, and his treatment of Rawdon is characteristic of his approach to male full-length portraiture: the feathery, atmospheric brushwork of the background and the figure's relaxed bearing combine formal dignity with natural ease. The painting's presence in the São Paulo Museum of Art — one of Latin America's most important European art collections, assembled through systematic acquisition in the mid-twentieth century — documents the global dispersal of Georgian British portraits.

Gainsborough renders the young nobleman with characteristic atmospheric elegance, using warm tones and fluid handling. The military bearing of the sitter is conveyed with understated dignity rather than martial ostentation.