Carmontelle specialised in elegant portraits of figures in the household of his employer, the duc d’Orléans, among them this drawing of the seated comte de Genlis. Genlis’s wife was lady-in-waiting to the duke’s son, Philippe, and was a respected author: George owned many of her books. By 1828, this drawing would have evoked nostalgia for pre-Revolutionary France, with which George was fascinated.

Purchased in 1828