Sir William Dolben (1727–1814), Bt

Sir William Dolben was a baronet, clergyman, and most significantly one of the earliest parliamentary advocates for the abolition of the slave trade, whose 1788 Dolben Act regulated the conditions under which enslaved people were transported across the Atlantic — a modest but historically significant first step toward abolition. Opie's 1810 portrait, held at the Examination Schools in Oxford, was made three years after Dolben's death in 1814 — wait, Dolben died in 1814, but the portrait is dated 1810, placing it in his final years, when he was in his early eighties. The Examination Schools in Oxford were built in the 1880s and would have acquired this portrait as part of their collections. Dolben's connection to Oxford through his political and clerical career makes the university context appropriate. A portrait of one of the early parliamentary abolitionists carries particular historical weight given the subsequent history of that movement.

A portrait of an elderly man in his early eighties by Opie in 1810 — two years before Opie's own death in 1807, actually suggesting this may be posthumous or misattributed — would show the painter's fully mature technique applied to the demanding subject of extreme old age. Opie's bold chiaroscuro was well suited to the sculptural qualities of an aged face, where deep shadows and pronounced highlights reveal the structure beneath the skin.