Superb 18th Century Portrait of Alexander Popham of Bagborough, Somerset, by Thomas Beach Signed and dated 1781Beautiful period antique frame.Measurements are: 78cm wide, 92cm high and 7cm deepBeach was born at Milton Abbas, Dorset in 1738, and showed. a strong predilection for art from an early age. In 1760, under the patronage of Lord Dorchester''s family, he became a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, while at the same time studying at the St. Martin''s Lane Academy. He then settled at the fashionable resort of Bath, where he was much in demand for his portraits and portrait groups, which were usually of a small size.[1]He painted the actress Sarah Siddons several times. In his first portrait of her, painted in the winter of 1781–2, she is shown seated, in everyday clothes, holding a book. He depicted her again later in 1782, in one of his more ambitious works, an allegorical portrait inspired by Milton''s Il Penseroso, in which she represented the personification of...