George Stone (1708–1764), Archbishop of Armagh

Ramsay's portrait of George Stone (1708-1764), Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, in Christ Church Oxford — to which Stone had academic connections — records one of the most politically significant Anglican churchmen of the mid-eighteenth century. Stone was a dominant figure in Irish politics as well as ecclesiastical administration, serving effectively as the political manager of the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland during the 1750s and engaging in fierce political controversies with rival factions in the Irish Parliament. A portrait commissioned for Christ Church — where Stone may have been educated — placed his image in the institutional context that had formed him, establishing a claim to the college's proud portrait tradition. Ramsay was the natural choice for an ambitious Anglican prelate who wanted the best portraiture available in Britain.

An Archbishop's portrait required careful description of the episcopal costume — the lawn sleeves of an Anglican bishop, the black chimere, the pectoral cross, and the full academic or ceremonial wig appropriate to the sitter's Oxonian as well as episcopal identity. Ramsay handled ecclesiastical dress with the same material precision he brought to legal and military costume, treating each institutional uniform as a language of social meaning.