Joseph Grozer after Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Master Braddyll.

14 x 18.5 inches

A full-length mezzotint portrait by Grozer after Reynolds; published in London in 1785.

Thomas Braddyll (1776-1862) was the son of an MP, Wilson Gale Braddyll. He grew up to become a colonel in the Coldstream Guards. In this charming portrait he is shown, aged nine years old, leaning up against a very large stone vase with a classical frieze running around its middle. He wears a velvet jacket and holds a hat in his right hand. Behind him there is a pastoral landscape of hills, trees and fields. This portrait marks the transition from childhood when boys discarded often quite feminine clothing for the more formal attire of a gentleman.

Joseph Grozer is one of the many highly skilled engravers employed by Reynolds to reproduce his portraits. He is far less well known than some of his contemporaries and appears to have a had a relatively short working life in the late 1780s and early 1790s. Consequently, his mezzotint studies are scarce and highly sought after, this being a particularly good example.