''Portrait of John Burgoyne'' is a 1766 portrait painting by the English artist

Joshua Reynolds Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter who specialised in portraits. The art critic John Russell (art critic), John Russell called him one of the major European painters of the 18th century, while Lucy P ...

of the British soldier, politician and playwright

John Burgoyne General (United Kingdom), General John "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne (24 February 1722 – 4 August 1792) was a British Army officer, playwright and politician who sat in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1761 to 1792. He first saw acti ...

, best known for his later service in the

American War of Independence The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

Sitter

At the time of painting Burgoyne had won distinction during the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...

in resisting the 1762

Spanish Invasion of Portugal The Spanish invasion of Portugal (1762) between 5 May and 24 November, was a military episode in the wider Fantastic War in which Spain and France were defeated by the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance with broad popular resistance. It involved at f ...

. Since 1761 he had been Member of Parliament for

Midhurst Midhurst () is a market town and civil parish in the Chichester District in West Sussex, England. It lies on the River Rother (Western), River Rother, inland from the English Channel and north of Chichester. The name Midhurst was first reco ...

and in 1768 he won a hotly-contested election in Preston, a seat he held for the rest of his life. Burgoyne would later become known for writing two plays '' The Maid of the Oaks'' (1774) and ''

The Heiress ''The Heiress'' is a 1949 American romantic drama film directed and produced by William Wyler, from a screenplay written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, adapted from their 1947 stage play of the same title, which was itself adapted from Henry Jam ...

'' (1786), both staged in London's West End. In 1777 he led a British Army south from Canada to capture Albany in New York but mislaid orders meant he was isolated at the

Battle of Saratoga The Battles of Saratoga (September 19 and October 7, 1777) were two battles between the American Continental Army and the British Army fought near Saratoga, New York, concluding the Saratoga campaign in the American Revolutionary War. The Battle ...

and forced to surrender to

Horatio Gates Horatio Lloyd Gates (July 26, 1727April 10, 1806) was a British-born American army officer who served as a general in the Continental Army during the early years of the American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War. He took credit for the Ameri ...

, a former British officer now serving with the

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies representing the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States during the American Revolutionary War. It was formed on June 14, 1775, by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Co ...

. Burgoyne insisted that his troops become a

Convention Army The Convention Army (1777–1783) was an army of British and allied troops captured after the Battles of Saratoga in the American Revolutionary War. Convention of Saratoga On 17 October 1777, British General John Burgoyne surrendered his army ...

and be shipped back to Britain to continue fighting in the war, but the

Continental Congress The Continental Congress was a series of legislature, legislative bodies, with some executive function, for the Thirteen Colonies of British America, Great Britain in North America, and the newly declared United States before, during, and after ...

repudiated these terms and imprisoned the soldiers. Burgoyne was himself

paroled Parole, also known as provisional release, supervised release, or being on paper, is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole of ...

and allowed to return home to defend his conduct.

Painting

Reynolds was an established British portrait painter when he depicted Burgoyne. He was subsequently a driving force behind the creation of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

in 1768 and served as its first President until 1792. Reynolds shows Burgoyne in military dress with

sword A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...

. He wears the uniform of the Sixteenth Light Dragoons, a branch of the

light cavalry Light cavalry comprised lightly armed and body armor, armored cavalry troops mounted on fast horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry, where the mounted riders (and sometimes the warhorses) were heavily armored. The purpose of light cavalry was p ...

. It was commissioned by his former commander in Portugal

William, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe Wilhelm, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe-Bückeburg (9 January 1724 – 10 September 1777), born Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Graf zu Schaumburg-Lippe-Bückeburg, was a German ruler of the County of Schaumburg-Lippe-Bückeburg, an important military comm ...

. He is silhouetted against a low horizon and

storm A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstor ...

y sky, a common feature of

romantic art Romanticism in the visual arts, originating in the 1760s, marked a shift towards depicting wild landscapes and dramatic scenes, reflecting a departure from classical artistic norms. This movement emphasized the sublime beauty of nature, the inte ...

. In the background on the bottom left a

battle A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force co ...

is taking place. It is now in the

Frick Collection The Frick Collection (colloquially known as the Frick) is an art museum on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was established in 1935 to preserve the collection of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The collection (museum) ...

in New York City having been acquired in 1943.Smith & MacDonald p.48

References

Bibliography

* Hargrove, Richard. ''General John Burgoyne''. University of Delaware Press, 1982. * O'Shaunhassey, Andrew Jackson. ''The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of Empire''. Yale University Press, 2013. * Postle, Edward (ed.) ''Joshua Reynolds: The Creation of Celebrity''. Harry N. Abrams, 2005. * Ryskamp, Charles. ''Art in the Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts''. Harry N. Abrams, 1996. * Smith, Geoffrey & MacDonald, Deanna. ''100 Best Paintings in New York''. Interlink Publishing Group Incorporated, 2008. * Thomson, Peter. ''The Cambridge Introduction to English Theatre, 1660–1900''. Cambridge University Press, 2006. 1766 paintings Portraits by Joshua Reynolds Portrait paintings in the Frick Collection {{1760s-painting-stub

Sitter

Painting

See also

References

Bibliography