Pastel portrait by William Hoare depicting Philip Dormer Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield. Great Britain, ca. 1730-1773.

Pastel portrait depicting Philip Dormer Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield.

Presented by The National Art Collections Fund

This drawing is probably the original from which numerous mezzotint and line engravings were made by Simon, Ford, Miller and others.

Philip Dormer Stanhope was the son of Philip Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Chesterfield (1672-1726) and his wife Lady Elizabeth Savile (1674-1708), daughter of George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax.

He entered parliament in 1715 as MP for St Germans. Following his father's death in 1726, Stanhope was elevated to the House of Lords. Between 1728 and 1732 he served as ambassador to The Hague and was installed as a Knight of the Garter in 1730 - he is shown wearing the Garter Star in this portrait. While on diplomatic duty he fathered a son, Philip Stanhope, as a result of a liaison with Elizabeth de Bouchet. In 1737 Chesterfield began a thirty year correspondence with his son in an attempt to guide, mentor and tutor him. These letters were published after the Earl's death.

Upon his return to England in 1732 he married Petronilla Melusine von der Schulenburg, Countess of Walsingham (d. 1778), an illegitimate daughter of King George I, whose dowry was reported to be 50,000 guineas. Chesterfield was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland between 1745 and 1746 and Secretary of State between 1746 and 1748, resigning eventually from politics in 1748.

P.11-1943