| A half-length portrait to right, wearing flag officer's full-dress uniform, 1767-83, and white wig. The background consists of blue sky and the lower half forms a painted oval. Hood served under Sir George Rodney in the West Indies and as commander of the rear squadron at the Battle of the Saints, 1782, he received the surrender of de Grasse, the French Admiral. In 1793, when Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, he occupied Toulon. This was his last active service before he became Governor of Greenwich Hospital until his death. The artist was a pupil and assistant of Reynolds and practised portraiture at Plymouth until 1777, when he went to Italy to study, before settling in London in 1781. There is another version of this portrait in the City of Manchester collection. The NMM version is signed and dated 1784 on the back. |
