Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh, 1st Bt, MP (1714-1774) with Wreaths of Fruit and Corn

Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh, 1st Baronet MP (1714–1774), appears in multiple Batoni portraits from the 1751 Roman visit — this one showing him with wreaths of fruit and corn. As the patriarch of the Uppark household and the client responsible for the entire suite of Fetherstonhaugh Batoni portraits, Sir Matthew was the most significant member of the commission group. The fruit and corn wreaths echo the pastoral abundance imagery seen elsewhere in the Uppark series, linking the baronet to the landed prosperity of an English country estate. Sir Matthew was a Member of Parliament and a man of considerable wealth, and his Roman portrait session was the crowning cultural event of his Grand Tour, producing one of the largest and most coherent groups of Batoni family portraits in any British collection.

Oil on canvas with the pastoral wreath attributes that Batoni used for several of the Uppark portraits, suggesting a deliberate iconographic program conceived by either the painter or the patron. The fruit and corn are rendered with still-life precision alongside the portraiture of the baronet's face. Composition likely positions Fetherstonhaugh with natural authority as the paterfamilias of the group.