Captain George K. H. Coussmaker (1759–1801)
Sir Joshua Reynolds
1782 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings
With legs elegantly crossed as he leans against a tree, the young army captain in this portrait embodies aristocratic self-possession and nonchalance. Reynolds’s ambitions for the portrait come across in the number of sittings he required to complete it: twenty-one appointments with Coussmaker between February and April of 1782, and as many as eight sessions with his horse. Portraits such as these commanded exceptionally high prices from American collectors in the late nineteenth century, as they sought to appropriate the perceived elegance and refinement of the British upper classes.
- Artist
- Sir Joshua Reynolds
- Date
- 1782
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Department
- European Paintings
- Credit line
- Bequest of William K. Vanderbilt, 1920
