Portrait of Robert Henley, 2nd Earl of Northington

Reynolds's second portrait of Robert Henley, 2nd Earl of Northington, from 1782 at the Musée Cognacq-Jay is a variant or related version of the National Gallery of Ireland canvas depicting the same sitter in the same year. Reynolds occasionally painted multiple versions of significant commissions — a standard practice among court and society painters whose clients might wish to distribute copies to family members or whose official role warranted more than one portrait — and the Northington commission appears to have generated at least two closely related works. The Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris, a museum of eighteenth-century decorative arts and painting established by the founders of La Samaritaine department store, holds a number of British works as part of its broader representation of European Rococo and Neoclassical culture. Reynolds's portraits in French institutional collections reflect the early cross-Channel traffic in British painting, accelerated by the Napoleonic-era art market that dispersed many English collections to Continental buyers.

The portrait presents the sitter with dignified authority. Reynolds's handling creates an image of political leadership.