Portrait of Nicholas Lechmere Pateshall C.1815; Studio or Circle of Domenico Pellegrini.

Oil on canvas in giltwood frame.

The young officer, Captain Lechmere Pateshall R.N., looks out proudly; his hair in the latest style, he wears the dress uniform of a post captain, with twin epaulettes and much gold lace, holding his sword and with his bicorne hat tucked beneath his right arm.

(An officer was 'made post' when he was first commissioned to command a rated vessel...that is, a ship too important to be commanded by a mere commander. Being 'made post' was the most crucial event in an officer's career.

A commander wore a single epaulette on the left shoulder; a post captain with less than three years seniority wore a single epaulette on the right shoulder, and a post captain with three years or more seniority wore an epaulette on each shoulder.)

NICHOLAS LECHMERE PATESHALL (1782 - 1854) was a member an old gentry family that traced its origins back to the Middle Ages. He was the fourth son of Edmund Lechmere Pateshall and his wife, Ann, daughter of William Burnam and was born at Allensmore, Herefordshire.

He was made a Royal Navy lieutenant in 1801 at the age of 19,and was appointed Master and Commander of HMS Reindeer in 1811.( Reindeer was an 18 gun brig-sloop, launched in 1804, captured and burnt in 1814 after a gallant and bloody fight with the USS Wasp, an American warship.)

In 1815 Pateshall was made Captain of HMS Polyphemus, a ship of the line of 64 guns that had been one of Nelson's fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar.

In this year the Napoleonic War that had ravaged Europe since 1799 finally came to an end with the French defeat at Waterloo.

Pateshall was posted in the London Gazette as 'Retired Captain of the Fleet' 1 September 1846, and in 1850 received notice from the Admiralty that, due to age and seniority, he needs no commission to become Retired Rear Admiral.

Pateshall died in 1854.

DOMENICO PELLIGRINI (1759 - 1840) was an Italian painter.

He completed his early studies in Venice and then Rome, where he was a pupil of Domenico Corvi. In 1792 he left for London, where he began attending the Royal Academy of Arts, encouraged by his friend and mentor Francesco Bartolozzi, to whom he dedicated a portrait.

He lived for a long time in the British capital where he worked and exhibited until 1812, during which time he exhibited 35 portraits at the Royal Academy.

In 1812 he moved to Lisbon, again on the advice of Bartolozzi, who already lived there.

After some time he returned to Italy, where he worked mainly in Rome and Milan.

He painted many British military officers including Admiral Jervis and the Duke of Wellington.

He died in Rome in 1840.

SIZE:37 x 32 inches inc. frame.

PROVENANCE: Estate of William T. Martin.

VERSO:two old inscriptions referring to the estate of William T. Martin as the donor of the portrait, plus an early 20th c. label for W. Freeman and Sons, Picture Restorers of Albemarle Place, London.