The 4th Duke of Queensberry ('Old Q') as Earl of March

Reynolds painted the 4th Duke of Queensberry — the notorious 'Old Q' — around 1759, capturing the nobleman as a young Earl of March rather than the aged roué who would later become one of the most commented-upon figures of Regency London. William Douglas, later 4th Duke of Queensberry, spent a long life pursuing pleasure with remarkable single-mindedness: his racing interests at Newmarket, his romantic adventures (he reportedly watched women pass his Piccadilly balcony while judging their appearance), and his vast fortune made him simultaneously admired and reviled in the London press. Reynolds's portrait, painted when Queensberry was still in his mid-twenties, shows a young man of evident self-confidence and fashionable elegance — qualities that the later career would distort but not entirely extinguish. The Wallace Collection's holding of the canvas alongside several other Reynolds works representing the Georgian pleasure class documents the painter's comprehensive engagement with the full spectrum of aristocratic social life, from its most intellectually distinguished figures to its most hedonistically inclined.

The portrait presents the young duke with characteristic elegance. Reynolds's handling creates an image of youthful aristocratic insouciance.