Portrait of Lord Cornwallis | |
---|---|
Artist | Thomas Gainsborough |
Year | 1783 |
Type | Oil on canvas, portrait |
Dimensions | 76 cm× 63.1 cm(30 in× 24.8 in) |
Location | National Portrait Gallery, London |
Portrait of Lord Cornwallis is a 1783 portrait painting by the English artist Thomas Gainsborough depicting the British general Charles, Earl Cornwallis. [1]
Cornwallis had recently served in the American War of Independence where he commanded British and Loyalist American forces during the Southern Campaign. Trapped by the French fleet of Comte de Grasse following the Battle of the Chesapeake and hemmed in by the Franco-American Army under Rochambeau and George Washington he was forced on 19 October 1781 to surrender during the Siege of Yorktown . Unable to be rescued in time by his superior Clinton coming from New York. While the surrender has not marked the end of the war, it let directly to the downfall of the government of Lord North.
He is depicted the same year that the Peace of Paris was ratified, ending the war. Cornwallis career was revived by the government of William Pitt and he served for a further two decades, notably in India and Ireland. In 1802 he negotiated and signed the Treaty of Amiens with France, bringing a temporary halt to the Napoleonic Wars, portrayed in the later painting The Peace of Amiens by Jules-Claude Ziegler. [2]
Cornwallis sat on his return to London after Yorktown. At the same time another veteran of the American War, the Irish general Lord Rawdon, was also being painted by Gainsborough. The portrait of Cornwallis was displayed at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition in 1783. It was considered a "good likeness" of the general. It is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London. [3] A version commissioned by the Princes of Wales soon afterwards is now in the Royal Collection. [4]
William Petty Fitzmaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, known as the Earl of Shelburne between 1761 and 1784, by which title he is generally known to history, was an Anglo-Irish Whig statesman who was the first home secretary in 1782 and then prime minister in 1782–83 during the final months of the American War of Independence. He succeeded in securing peace with America and this feat remains his most notable legacy.
John Trumbull was an American painter and military officer best known for his historical paintings of the American Revolutionary War, of which he was a veteran. He has been called the "Painter of the Revolution". Trumbull's Declaration of Independence (1817), one of his four paintings that hang in the United States Capitol rotunda, is used on the reverse of the current United States two-dollar bill.
The siege of Charleston was a major engagement and major British victory in the American Revolutionary War, fought in the environs of Charles Town, the capital of South Carolina, between March 29 and May 12, 1780. The British, following the collapse of their northern strategy in late 1777 and their withdrawal from Philadelphia in 1778, shifted their focus to the North American Southern Colonies. After approximately six weeks of siege, Major General Benjamin Lincoln, commanding the Charleston garrison, surrendered his forces to the British. It was one of the worst American defeats of the war.
Francis Edward Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings,, styled The Honourable Francis Rawdon from birth until 1762, Lord Rawdon between 1762 and 1783, The Lord Rawdon from 1783 to 1793 and The Earl of Moira between 1793 and 1816, was an Anglo-Irish politician and military officer who served as Governor-General of India from 1813 to 1823. He had also served with British forces for years during the American Revolutionary War and in 1794 during the War of the First Coalition. In Ireland, he was critical of the policy of coercion used to break the United Irish movement for representative government and national independence. He took the additional surname "Hastings" in 1790 in compliance with the will of his maternal uncle, Francis Hastings, 10th Earl of Huntingdon.
General Sir Banastre Tarleton, 1st Baronet was a British military officer and politician. He is best known as the lieutenant colonel leading the British Legion at the end of the American Revolutionary War. He later served in Portugal and held commands in Ireland and England.
Major-General William Phillips was a British Army officer who served in the Royal Artillery during the American War of Independence.
Earl Cornwallis was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain created in 1753 for Charles Cornwallis, 5th Baron Cornwallis. The second Earl was created Marquess Cornwallis but this title became extinct upon the death of the second marquessate in 1823, while the earldom and its subsidiary titles became extinct in 1852.
General Charles O'Hara was a British Army officer who served in the Seven Years' War, the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary War and later served as governor of Gibraltar. He served with distinction during the American War of Independence, commanding a brigade of Foot Guards as part of the army of Charles Cornwallis and was wounded during the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. He offered the British surrender during the siege of Yorktown on behalf of his superior Charles Cornwallis and is depicted in the eponymous painting by John Trumbull. During his career O'Hara personally surrendered to both George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Yorktown campaign, also known as the Virginia campaign, was a series of military maneuvers and battles during the American Revolutionary War that culminated in the siege of Yorktown in October 1781. The result of the campaign was the surrender of the British Army force of General Charles Earl Cornwallis, an event that led directly to the beginning of serious peace negotiations and the eventual end of the war. The campaign was marked by disagreements, indecision, and miscommunication on the part of British leaders, and by a remarkable set of cooperative decisions, at times in violation of orders, by the French and Americans.
Frederick Cornwallis was a British clergy member who served as Archbishop of Canterbury after a career in the Church of England. He was born the seventh son of an aristocratic family.
Charles Noel Noel, 1st Earl of Gainsborough, known as Charles Edwardes until 1798, as Charles Noel between 1798 and 1823 and as the Lord Barham between 1823 and 1841, was a British peer and Whig politician.
Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, KG, PC was a British Army officer, Whig politician and colonial administrator. In the United States and the United Kingdom, he is best known as one of the leading British general officers in the American War of Independence. His surrender in 1781 to a combined American and French force at the siege of Yorktown ended significant hostilities in North America. Cornwallis later served as a civil and military governor in Ireland, where he helped bring about the Act of Union; and in India, where he helped enact the Cornwallis Code and the Permanent Settlement.
This is a list of the principal holders of government office during the second premiership of the Marquess of Rockingham for four months in 1782.
The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis is an oil painting by John Trumbull. The painting, which was completed in 1820, now hangs in the rotunda of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Charles, Earl Cornwallis (1738–1805) was a military officer who served in the British Army during the American War of Independence. He is best known for surrendering his army after the 1781 siege of Yorktown, an act that ended major hostilities in North America and led directly to peace negotiations and the eventual end of the war.
Francis James Jackson was a British diplomat, ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Prussia and the United States.
General Alexander Ross (1742–1827) was a British officer who served in the American War of Independence and in India, rising to the rank of general. He was a close friend of Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis.
Washington at Verplanck's Point is a full-length portrait in oil painted in 1790 by the American artist John Trumbull of General George Washington at Verplanck's Point on the North River in New York during the American Revolutionary War. The background depicts the September 14, 1782 review of Continental Army troops Washington staged there as an honor for the departing French commander Comte de Rochambeau and his army.
The Marquess of Wellesley is a portrait painting by the English artist Thomas Lawrence of the Irish statesman Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley. Wellesley was a senior politician in Britain where he served as Foreign Secretary from 1809 to 1812 and was regarded as a potential future Prime Minister. Lawrence was the leading portraitist of the Regency era, depicting prominent figures from Britain and it's European Allies during the Napoleonic Wars. It is also known as the Portrait of Lord Wellesley.
The Peace of Amiens is an 1853 history painting by the French artist Jules-Claude Ziegler depicting the signing of the Treaty of Amiens on 25 March 1802. The agreement, negotiated in the city of Amiens in Picardy, brought an end to the French Revolutionary War and halted fighting between Britain and France that had lasted since 1793. In the evening the peace was short-lived with the Napoleonic Wars breaking out in May 1803.