Henry Wyndham, 2nd Baron Leconfield (1830-1901)

Watts painted Henry Wyndham, 2nd Baron Leconfield in 1867, one of a series of aristocratic portraits he produced for Petworth House in Sussex — the magnificent country seat that housed one of England's greatest private art collections, including major works by Turner and Van Dyck. The 2nd Baron Leconfield was the custodian of this extraordinary collection, and Watts's commission to paint him there placed the painter in direct dialogue with the masterpieces that surrounded the sitting. The National Trust's canvas preserves this portrait within the setting for which it was made, as Petworth remains in National Trust care. Watts by 1867 was at the height of his portrait powers, and paintings from this decade show the full range of his psychological acuity combined with his maturing technical fluency. The aristocratic subject matter never merely flattered Watts's sitters — he sought, and usually found, the human complexity behind the social surface.

In oil on canvas, Watts employs the warm, loosely atmospheric background that typifies his mature portraiture, setting the figure as a luminous presence against an undefined but spatially convincing field. The face receives concentrated, almost scientific attention, while the costume and setting are treated with deliberate looseness that directs all energy toward psychological characterisation.