Henry Bathurst, Bishop Of Norwich (1805–1837)

Henry Bathurst served as Bishop of Norwich from 1805 to 1837, but George Romney's 1778 portrait, held at New College, Oxford, depicts him more than a quarter century before that appointment — presumably at an earlier stage of his ecclesiastical career. Bathurst was a Whig prelate known for his unusual views, including public support for Catholic emancipation, which made him controversial within the Church of England establishment. Romney's 1778 canvas dates from relatively early in his London practice, when he was still building the reputation that would make him one of the city's leading portraitists by the mid-1780s. Ecclesiastical portraiture formed an important strand of Romney's practice, particularly through Oxford and Cambridge college commissions. The New College connection suggests Bathurst had ties to that institution before his elevation to the episcopate. The portrait captures a younger man's ambitions and intellectual engagement before the long exercise of episcopal authority.

The 1778 date reveals a Romney whose handling has gained assurance but has not yet reached the full fluid confidence of his mature work. The clerical dress is handled carefully, its formal requirements giving the composition a slightly stiffer quality than his more relaxed portraits of secular sitters. The face shows careful attention to individual features within the constraints of appropriate episcopal gravity.