Portrait of the Duke of Orleans

After a work by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Probably a later copy of the portrait with possible attributions including Henry Thomson (1773-1843) (who previously owned the work) and Samuel Drummond (1765-1844); a ''virtually identical painting of similar dimensions at Petworth is said to be by Samuel Drummond'' letter from Robin Gibson, National Portrait Gallery, 15/12/1981. There is also a more finished version in the Museé Condé, Chantilly, France. A letter from John Deffett Francis to Sir John Williams dated September 27th 1898 (NLW) states ''We had a clearing out here [Fine Art Department Swansea Public Library] yesterday especially of my old first curator room - and to my delight found 5 oil pictures which I had quite forgoten all remembrance of, till I saw them - 1 These consist of Sir Joshua's study for the Colour of his Portrait of the Duke of Orleans - the picture was painted for the P of Wales but was destroyed by fire. This study did belong to H Thompson RA who worked for Sir JR - I bought it at the same time I bought HT's two Grand historic pictures of Orpheus & Erydie - & Icarus''. It seems very unlikely that Henry Thomson did actually work as an assistant to Sir Joshua Reynolds as Thomson didn't enter the RA Schools until 1790 and was only 12 or 13 when Reynolds painted the portrait in 1785 (the Museé Condé date their work as 1779). The original portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds was exhibited at the Royal Academy in the summer of 1786. John Raphael Smith made a mezzotint of the painting published on 30 March 1786 (before it was exhibited at the RA). The painting was not in fact destroyed by fire in 1824 but badly damaged and is still in the Royal Collection though in very poor condition. The Duke was known as the Duke of Chartres until his father's death in 1785 when he became the Duke of Orleans. He was later to be known as 'Philippe Egalité'. Though of royal blood he became estranged from the Royal Family and publicly accused the King of illegal behaviour before Parlement in 1787. He supported the French Revolution and voted for the execution of his cousin King Louis XVI (on news of this Reynold's portrait was taken down from the walls of Carlton House (Clarence House?) but was still made available for artists to copy). He was later executed in the Reign of Terror in 1793