Sir John Walter of Sarsden (1673–1722), 3rd Bt, MP for Appleby (1694) and MP for Oxford (1705)

This 1705 portrait of Sir John Walter of Sarsden, 3rd Baronet and MP for Appleby and Oxford, depicts a member of the landed gentry who served Parliament during the politically turbulent final years of Queen Anne's reign. Walter's parliamentary career coincided with the intense Whig-Tory conflict over the War of the Spanish Succession and the Hanoverian succession, and his portrait by Kneller places him within the network of country gentlemen whose votes determined the outcome of these constitutional conflicts. The Sarsden estate in Oxfordshire connected him to one of England's most politically significant counties during a period when Oxfordshire's Tory politics were in frequent conflict with the Whig government.

The portrait follows Kneller's standard composition for parliamentary gentlemen, with dignified pose and contemporary dress rendered in the broad, efficient manner of his most productive period.