Little is known about Richard Barrington (died 1814 in Valenciennes), who became the fourth viscount Barrington in 1801. He married Susannah Budden (1761-1830) of Philadelphia, daughter of Captain William and Louisa Cuzzins Budden, in 1783. Although the Barrington family belonged to the peerage of Ireland, their principal residence was listed in 1783 as Becket House, Shrivenham, England. In 1785 Stuart painted a portrait in London of Richard Barrington’s uncle, Admiral Samuel Barrington. It is possible that Captain William Budden’s family moved to England after the Revolution.
The subject was associated with London, Dublin, and Philadelphia, the cities where Stuart spent three of his most important periods, but the style of the painting appears to be that found in the portraits Stuart painted in New York immediately after his return to this country in 1793. As in those portraits, Barrington’s figure is drawn as though immediately against the picture plane, a silhouette established from the indefinite background. The seriousness and direct gaze of the subjects of these portraits contribute to a feeling of sensitive realism, enhanced by skillfully differentiated textures.
