Portrait of Sir William Chambers

In 1780 the Royal Academy moved into grand new rooms at Somerset House on the Strand, and this portrait belongs to that moment. The building was designed by the man in the picture, the architect William Chambers, who had helped persuade George III to back the Academy and served as its treasurer for the first 28 years. Reynolds, the Academy's president, painted him as a companion piece to a self-portrait of his own, and the two canvases hung on either side of the chimney in the assembly room, president and treasurer facing across the fire. Chambers sits deep in thought, a drawing crayon in his hand, and behind him rises the Strand front of Somerset House, the very building they were sitting in.