The fifty-two portraits in this exhibition have been chosen from the much larger collection which hangs in the Provost’s Lodge at Eton. All date from the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. All portray boys or young men shortly after leaving Eton. Many of them were included in the exhibition held at Eton in 1891 to commemorate the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the College. In origin, in subject, in historic interest and in artistic excellence they form a unique collection.
They owe their origin to the custom at Eton, first recorded in the seventeenth century, by which the headmaster presented books ‘to all young gentlemen who took their leave of him handsomely’. Handsomely seems to have implied the present of some £10 or £15 (noblemen paid double) slipped unostentatiously on to the headmaster’s desk when taking final leave.
It was to a headmaster, Dr. Barnard, who reigned from 1754 to 1765, that the idea occurred of asking for a portrait instead of a leaving fee from his more distinguished pupils.
It was Dr. Barnard who commissioned the earliest portrait shown here, that of Henry Howard by Allan Ramsay, as well as the portraits by Reynolds of John Darner, of the Duke of Gordon and of Charles James Fox.
Geoffrey Agnew