Gedenkbild für James, 1. Earl of Stanhope

James Stanhope, soldier and secretary of state, died in February 1721, the day after a furious debate in the House of Lords over the collapse of the South Sea Company. Five years later an Irish theatre manager living in Venice had him put into a monument that was never built. Owen McSwiny had gone bankrupt in London and was rebuilding himself as an agent for pictures, and his scheme was a set of about 24 imaginary tombs for British Whig heroes, painted by Venetian and Bolognese artists and sold to English buyers who shared the politics. This one reached the second Duke of Richmond by 1727. The figures are Pittoni's, while the architecture and landscape came from other hands on the team, Canaletto and Cimaroli among them. The canvas stands 221 centimetres tall and hangs now in Norfolk, Virginia.