John Tracy (1722–1793), 7th Viscount Tracy

John Tracy, 7th Viscount Tracy, painted by Lawrence around 1800 and at All Souls College Oxford, was a member of the English Catholic nobility — a small class of families who had maintained their recusant faith through centuries of legal disability and social exclusion. The Tracy family's Catholicism made them part of the distinctive world of English Catholics who managed to preserve both their faith and their aristocratic social position through the penal period, though at the cost of exclusion from parliamentary office, university degrees, and military commissions. The gradual lifting of these disabilities through the Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1791 had improved the legal position of Catholics considerably by the time Tracy was painted, though full Catholic Emancipation would not come until 1829. All Souls College's holding of this portrait reflects the Oxford institutional collecting tradition rather than any specific educational connection — Tracy, as a Catholic, would not have been able to attend Oxford during most of his family's history. Lawrence treats the Viscount with the formal dignity appropriate to his ancient title and rank, the portrait's conventional aristocratic vocabulary entirely neutral on the question of the religious identity that had shaped the Tracy family's historical experience.

The portrait is a competent example of Lawrence's standard format for male peers, with warm flesh tones against a neutral dark ground. The handling is professional and assured without reaching the heights of inspiration that Lawrence achieved with his most compelling sitters.