Description

Half length, three quarter turned portrait of a gentleman with powdered hair. Wearing dark velvet coat and white cravat. Below is an inscription and the Duke of Dorset’s coat of arms, a shield flanked by cheetahs. This plate after a picture painted by Sir J Reynolds during His Grace's Embassy at the Court of France is by permission respectfully inscribed to Her Grace the Duchess of Dorset by Her Grace's very obedient Servt. John Bridgeman

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The 3rd Duke came from a family of talented cricketers who sponsored games at their family seat of Knole in Kent. He often wagered huge sums on a single match and was noted for his own skills as both bowler and batsman though not perhaps his fortitude. In 1746 as a Lieutenant Colonel in the 2nd Foot Guards he was arrested for desertion when his regiment was posted overseas. However he is better known for his association with the apocryphal story from 1789; in it, as Ambassador to the French Court, he was reputed to have invited a cricket team, under the Earl of Tankerville, to Paris to placate anti-British feeling. By the time the team arrived at Dover, they encountered Dorset 'scurrying ignominiously the other way' to escape the Revolution.