Portrait of Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748–1825)

Reynolds's portrait of Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle from 1769, held at Castle Howard — the house that Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor designed for his ancestor — depicts a young nobleman at the beginning of a career that would encompass politics, diplomacy, and cultural patronage on a grand scale. Howard served as a lord of the treasury, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and as a guardian of the young Byron; his portrait by Reynolds at twenty-one captures him before the weight of public responsibility had settled on his shoulders. Castle Howard's survival as a working aristocratic house with its collection largely intact makes it one of the most important sites for studying British portrait painting in its original setting — the Reynolds portrait of the earl occupies the house for which it was commissioned, hung among the Holbeins, Rubenses, and Canalettos that formed the comprehensive survey of European painting that great English houses aspired to maintain.

Reynolds presents the Earl with the easy elegance and intellectual poise appropriate to his station. The warm, confident technique and the carefully arranged composition demonstrate Reynolds's mature command of the grand-manner portrait that combined social distinction with individual characterization.