William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister

William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister from around 1784 by John Hoppner is one of many portraits of Britain's youngest prime minister, who took office at the age of twenty-four. Pitt's long premiership during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars made his portrait one of the most reproduced images in Georgian Britain. Characteristic of the artist's mature approach, the work displays fluent, confident brushwork in the tradition of Reynolds, with a warm atmospheric palette and a gift for flattering likenesses that retained individual character.

The portrait of the prime minister is rendered with Hoppner's characteristic broad handling, capturing the youthful statesman's features with atmospheric warmth and painterly fluency.