Waldive Willington (1677–1733)

This portrait of Waldive Willington of Tamworth, Staffordshire, depicts a member of the provincial English gentry whose portrait by Kneller demonstrates that the painter's practice extended well beyond the metropolitan elite. Tamworth's significance as Oliver Cromwell's birthplace gave the town a particular historical resonance, and its leading families navigated the same political transitions that occupied all English gentry in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Provincial portraits like this one preserve the appearance of figures important within their local communities but otherwise largely unrecorded in national historical sources. The circa 1710 date places this in Kneller's prolific final period.

The gentry portrait follows Kneller's standard composition for prosperous country gentlemen, with dignified pose and costume rendered in the broad, efficient manner that allowed his prolific studio to serve clients across England.