William Beckford, MP (1760 - 1844), aged 21

William Beckford (1760-1844) was one of the wealthiest men in Britain, heir to a Jamaican plantation fortune, and a figure of legendary extravagance — builder of Fonthill Abbey, collector, novelist, and traveler. Romney's portrait of the twenty-one-year-old Beckford captures him at the threshold of his extraordinary career, before the scandal that would drive him from English society in 1784. At this date Beckford was already recognized as a prodigious figure, and Romney's portrait participates in a cultural moment when his wealth, aestheticism, and unconventionality were subjects of fascinated commentary.

Romney renders the young Beckford with a freshness appropriate to his age — the face still forming its adult character, the whole composition suggesting energy and potential rather than settled authority. His landscape background gives the portrait a romantic openness that suits a young man of Beckford's Romantic sensibility.