Joseph Leeson was a member of a prosperous and well-established family of brewers in Dublin, who had invested considerable energies in elevating their status within Irish society. When his father died in 1741, Joseph inherited a handsome estate of £50,000 and was guaranteed a stipend of £6,000 per annum. With this vast windfall he acquired extensive lands in County Wicklow, on which he built an imposing mansion. Russborough House remains one of Ireland's most celebrated country houses.

Leeson's next step in his ascent through the social ranks was to secure a seat in the House of Commons, which he managed in 1743, when he was elected MP for Rathcormack, County Cork. Leeson's and his immediate ancestors' ambitions culminated in his becoming Baron of Russborough in 1756, Viscount Russborough in 1760, and finally Earl of Milltown in 1763. Known as an incorrigible libertine, Leeson was an important patron of the arts. In 1751 he sat to Pompeo Batoni for the earliest recorded portrait of an English or Irish sitter by the artist (Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland).

The present picture is considered the earliest of two portraits of Leeson executed in the 1730s by Anthony Lee, an eminent portraitist in Dublin. Leeson is depicted in his early twenties, standing beside an arch, as two servants hold his horse for him outside his town house on the south side of St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin. The later portrait by Anthony Lee, dated 1735, shows Leeson in front of an Palladian architectural setting, and was donated by the family to the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI.698) in 1902 as part of the celebrated Milltown gift of paintings and furniture.

A NOTE ON THE PROVENANCE:

Sir Roy Strong, C.H., F.R.S.L. (b. 1935) is an English art historian, former museum curator, writer, broadcaster, and garden designer. He was made Director of the National Portrait Gallery aged 32, and at 38 Director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, where he stayed until 1987. Sir Roy has published extensively, and is particularly renowned for his knowledge of Elizabethan portraiture, and gardens. In 1971 he married the theatre-designer Julia Trevelyan Oman (1930-2003), and together they created the celebrated gardens at The Laskett, Much Birch, Herefordshire, which Sir Roy has recently gifted to Perennial, the Gardeners' Royal Benevolent Society.