James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale

Reynolds's portrait of James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale, from around 1750 predates the transformative Italian journey that would define his mature style. The young Reynolds was at this date working in the manner absorbed from his master Thomas Hudson — a competent but formulaic approach derived ultimately from Godfrey Kneller's studio practices and the Baroque conventions of Van Dyck. Hudson had taught Reynolds to construct portraits efficiently: the sitter's face painted from life, the costume often completed using a lay figure, the whole assembled with professional polish but without the intellectual ambition Reynolds would acquire in Rome and Venice. In Italy between 1749 and 1752, Reynolds made hundreds of drawings and notes on Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, and the antique sculptors, building the theoretical framework he would deploy throughout his subsequent career. The contrast between this early portrait and his post-Italian work is stark, and the Lauderdale canvas helps calibrate the transformation that Italian study produced. Now in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the painting documents Reynolds's point of departure rather than arrival.

The portrait shows Reynolds's early manner, more restrained and conventional than his later Grand Manner portraits. The handling is competent but lacks the dramatic lighting and compositional ambition of his mature work.