Born in London and educated at Eton College, Percy was set on a military career from an early age, becoming a gazetted ensign in the 24th Regiment of Foot by the time he was seventeen. He fought in the Seven Year’s War (1756-63) and rose to the rank of major-general during the Revolutionary War. He was in command of the British brigade dispatched by General Gage to reinforce the troops under attack by the Colonial militia on April 19, 1775, and led the British retreat into Charlestown under heavy fire. After returning to England in 1777, Percy served as a Member of Parliament and acceded to the title in 1786; by the time of his death in 1817, he was one of England’s richest men. This portrait is a copy of the original done by Pompeo Batoni, although it is unclear exactly when or where Batoni painted Percy. The use of Percy’s title before he succeeded to the dukedom, Lord Warkworth, combined with evidence of existing copies of the work suggest that the original was made before the 1760s. The portrait was a gift from Earl Percy’s grand-nephew, Algernon George, 6th Duke of Northumberland, in 1879 to the town of Lexington.
Pompeo Batoni (1708-1787) was born in Lucca, and likely trained there before moving to Rome in the late 1720s. Although he began his career painting altarpieces, Batoni soon established himself as one of the most popular portrait painters of the time, particularly catering to aristocratic Englishmen on the Grand Tour with skillful draftsmanship and a polished style influenced by the work of Raphael and classical antiquity. He often depicted his sitters in archaeological sites or with pieces of ruined sculpture, and was famous for truly capturing the spirit and likeness of his subjects.