Lieutenant-General The Honourable Robert Monckton
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Lieutenant-General The Honourable Robert Monckton
Major-General (later Lieutenant-General) The Honourable Robert Monckton (1726-1782), at the Taking of Martinique, 1762.Oil on canvas by Benjamin West (1738-1820), 1763/4 (c), exhibited at the Society of Artists 1764.Listed in 1762 as a major-general (he later became a lieutenant-general), Monckton is wearing a general officers frock coat: the single-spaced buttons and loops were later to be used to denote full generals. Still in his thirties, Monckton was a tall, imposing figure, who received the thanks of the House of Commons for his valiant conquest of Martinique.Moncktons military career was largely centred in North America, most significantly as General Wolfes second-in-command at Quebec in 1759. From 1761-1763, he was Governor of New York. It was thus no coincidence that he chose the young American artist, Benjamin West, to record his grandest moment for posterity. In 1763 West had just arrived in London, en route from Italy to his native Pennsylvania, when he received the commission. His interpretation of the dignified general, with its fashionable Neo-Classical allusion to the Apollo Belvedere, was so successful that it was one of three paintings exhibited in 1764 that launched Wests career in England. West went on to receive royal patronage and, in 1792, succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as President of the Royal Academy. In its day, his most famous painting, The Death of General Wolfe, (National Galleries of Canada), was innovative for treating a contemporary subject as a formal, academic history painting, with the principals dressed in their own clothes, as opposed to classical robes.The map in Moncktons right hand and the left-hand detail of the portrait make direct allusion to the most crucial part of the capture of Martinique. There had previously been several unsuccessful British attempts to take this important sugar island. In 1762 it was heavily garrisoned with over 12, 000 French soldiers, local militia and hired privateersmen. Monckton assemb
Media ID 14397385
© The National Army Museum / Mary Evans Picture Library
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