Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington

Godfrey Kneller's portrait of Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington of around 1710 depicts the Whig politician who served as Speaker of the House of Commons and later as First Lord of the Treasury, the nominal head of government during his brief and largely ceremonial premiership. Kneller's portraits of parliamentary figures provided visual documentation of the emerging Whig oligarchy that governed Britain after the Glorious Revolution, and his formal studio conventions became the standard vocabulary for the representation of political power in early Georgian England.

Kneller renders the politician with his characteristic efficient technique and dignified formality. The careful rendering of the wig and formal costume follows the conventions of early 18th-century aristocratic portraiture.