Portrait of John Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl Spencer

The 3rd Earl Spencer was a leading Whig politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Grey during the passage of the 1832 Reform Act. Hayter’s portrait, painted around that pivotal year, captures one of the men most responsible for the legislation that transformed British politics. Spencer was also a renowned bibliophile whose collection formed the nucleus of what became the John Rylands Library in Manchester. 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.

Hayter presents the Earl with the dignified composure expected of a senior Whig statesman, the three-quarter pose and warm tonal range conveying authority without pomposity.