Master Richard Meyler, 1795, Aged 3 or 4

Master Richard Meyler was three or four years old when George Romney painted him in 1795, making this one of the artist's child portraits rather than youth portraits. The Meyler family had connections to Kendal and the Lake District region — Romney's home area — which likely explains the commission. Child portraiture in Georgian England served somewhat different functions from adult portraiture: it celebrated the family's continuation, recorded a moment of childhood innocence, and anticipated the adult the child would become. Romney painted children with notable sensitivity, adapting his handling to the softer features and different compositional requirements of very young subjects. The 1795 date places this work in the later part of Romney's active career. The portrait, now at Kendal Town Hall, has remained in the regional public collection most closely associated with the artist's own life and legacy.

Romney's handling of very young children requires the lightest possible modelling to capture the particular luminous softness of early childhood features without introducing the adult sculptural quality appropriate for mature subjects. The palette is warmer and lighter than his male adult portraits. The composition likely places the child in a setting that conveys both innocence and the promise of future personhood.