Sir John Rae Reid

Sir John Rae Reid was a banker and MP who represented Dover in the reformed Parliament. Hayter’s portrait study in the Parliamentary Art Collection documents another of the diverse figures who populated the House of Commons after 1832. The newly reformed Parliament included both traditional landowners and commercial men like Reid, whose City of London connections represented a different strand of British power. George Hayter was the preeminent British history and portrait painter of the early Victorian era, appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1841.

The portrait study’s clean, direct execution captures the banker’s features with businesslike efficiency. Hayter’s limited palette and focused composition serve the documentary purpose of the parliamentary project.