Richard Malone, Lord Sunderlin

Reynolds painted Richard Malone, Lord Sunderlin, around 1758, depicting an Irish peer from the Catholic aristocracy that maintained a tenuous but significant presence in Georgian cultural life despite the legal disabilities imposed by the penal laws. Malone held a barony in the Kingdom of Ireland — a title carrying social prestige without the political participation that Westminster Parliament membership would have allowed. Reynolds painted a substantial number of Irish subjects throughout his career, both Catholic and Protestant, reflecting the sustained flow of Anglo-Irish patronage to his London studio. The portrait, now in the National Gallery of Ireland, belongs to a collection whose holdings include many Reynolds works associated with the Anglo-Irish establishment — both the Protestant Ascendancy that governed Ireland in Reynolds's lifetime and the Catholic nobility that survived at its margins. Reynolds's Irish connections were primarily social rather than artistic; he visited Ireland only once, briefly, and his understanding of the country's complex religious and political culture came primarily through the Irish-born members of his London circle, including Edmund Burke and Oliver Goldsmith.

The portrait presents the peer with aristocratic dignity. Reynolds's handling creates an image of noble authority with characteristic warmth.