William Cleaver (1742–1815), DD, Principal (1785–1809)

William Cleaver from 1800 by John Hoppner depicts the academic who served as Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford and later as Bishop of Chester and St Asaph. Hoppner's academic and ecclesiastical portraits were valued for their dignified characterization of institutional figures. Hoppner's oil handling favored warm flesh tones over silvery grey half-shadows, producing an immediate vivacity that reflected his admiration for Reynolds and Gainsborough.

The ecclesiastical portrait renders the bishop-academic with appropriate scholarly dignity, in Hoppner's broad, painterly manner that gives the composition an atmospheric warmth.