Discover the people and previously untold histories behind Sir Joshua Reynolds’ early portrait commissions at an evening combining art, research and social history.

Plympton was the birthplace of celebrated eighteenth-century portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds. This special event explores the people he painted and the networks of patronage connecting artistic production, political power, colonial expansion and wealth in Georgian Britain.

Organised to coincide with the exhibition at the National Trust’s Saltram, the evening welcomes Dr Katherine Gazzard, art curator at Royal Museums Greenwich.

Dr Gazzard will discuss Reynolds’ naval portraits of George Edgcumbe and Paul Henry Ourry, the conservation work surrounding the paintings and the remarkable research that uncovered the previously untold story of the enslaved child known as “Jersey”.

She will explore the background to the commissions and the influential families who controlled the ancient borough of Plympton. The portraits capture individuals who were at the centre of events in Britain and overseas during a period of rapidly changing political and economic fortunes.

The evening’s programme includes:

7pm–7.30pm: A Portrait of Zachary Mudge with Mark Cardale

7.45pm–8.30pm: Portraits of Edgcumbe and Ourry with Dr Katherine Gazzard

From 8.30pm: Drinks reception and discussion

A glass of wine or a soft drink is included in the ticket price.

For enquiries, contact nigel.p.davies@icloud.com.