William Clayton, Later Lord Sundon

William Clayton was forty-eight when he sat for this portrait, a characteristically suave and professional work from Kneller’s later years. He was a close associate of the Duke of Marlborough, and the year before had been made a Lord of the Treasury. He was raised to the Irish peerage as Baron Sundon of Ardagh in 1735 and the coat of arms with its coronet must therefore be a later addition.