After Benjamin West, P.R.A.

By descent within Benjamin West's family

H. Von Erffa & A. Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West, New Haven 1986, p. 452, under no. 529 

In 1792 Benjamin West was not only elected President of the Royal Academy but he was also invited to become a member of the Society of Dilettanti. In 1818, twenty-six years later, he is thought to have promised to gift a self-portrait to the Society of Dilettanti. This work still belongs to the Society and hangs at Brooks's Club in St James’, London.¹ 

In correspondence with Sir Henry Englefield, the Society’s secretary, regarding the gift, he asked if it might be possible to keep the picture for the summer ‘in order to make copies to be sent to Rome and Florence'. Three copies of the self-portrait are currently known, the present work, a portrait in the Fogg Museum, Harvard and a third in a private American collection.²

^1.H. Von Erffa & A. Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West, New Haven 1986, p. 452, no. 529

^2.Ibid., p. 452