Edward, Duke of York (1739-1767), set off on a Grand Tour of Italy in the summer of 1763, at the age of 24. After first visiting Genoa, Florence and Rome, he travelled to Venice in May 1764. He spent three weeks there, hosted in lavish style by several Venetian noblemen, in the company of members of his Household and other English gentlemen.

It is surrounded by these men that the Duke of York is depicted by Richard Brompton: the Duke sits in the centre, wearing the ribbon and star of the Order of the Garter; on the left stands the Duke’s Master of the Horse, Sir William Boothby (1721-87) with his arm around the shoulders of the Duke’s Groom of the Bedchamber, Colonel Henry St. John (c. 1738-1818); on the right, Whig politician and Dilettanti Society member Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston (1739-1802) leans his arm on the Duke’s seat, with Resident at Venice John Murray (d. 1775), the Earl of Upper Ossory, John Fitzpatrick (1745-1818) and the grandson of the 1st Duke of St Albans, Topham Beauclerk (1739-80) also standing beside him. Brompton may have been commissioned to produce the work by Murray, and though the group portrait is set in Venice it is likely that Brompton did not start painting it until the party travelled on to Padua.

In this painting, Brompton followed a growing tradition of Grand Tour group portraiture. An Antique vase, upon which a relief of Leda and the Swan can be discerned, sits on a high plinth in the centre of the painting, above the Duke of York. Thus, both the Duke and the cultural education he was experiencing are prominent. Not only is his status made clear by his attire, his positioning and the gestures of his companions, but the Duke’s name is actually inscribed on one of the greyhounds’ collars, on the left-hand side.

Following the completion of the group portrait, Brompton was commissioned to produce several copies, one of which (403918) is also in the Royal Collection. In addition, the Duke sat for several individual portraits to commemorate his Grand Tour, commissioning both Grand Tour portraitist par excellence Pompeo Batoni and his English follower Nathaniel Dance-Holland.