Augustus Keppel, Viscount Keppel

Reynolds painted Admiral Augustus Keppel around 1779, a later portrait of the naval officer he had first painted in 1749. By this date Keppel had endured the humiliation of a court-martial following the inconclusive Battle of Ushant (1778), from which he was honorably acquitted. The trial became a political cause célèbre that divided the Navy along Whig and Tory lines. Now in a National Trust property, the portrait documents the later career of the man who had given Reynolds his crucial passage to Italy three decades earlier.

Executed with classical references in poses and attention to Grand Manner composition, the work reveals Joshua Reynolds's characteristic approach to composition and surface. The treatment of light and the careful modulation of color create visual richness within a unified pictorial scheme.