Portrait of Master Meynell

This portrait depicts Hugo Meynell (1759 – 1800) aged around 10. Hugo later married Elizabeth Ingram, third daughter of the ninth and last Viscount Irwin of Temple Newsam. Their son Hugo Charles Meynell Ingram went on to inherit all his mother’s family’s vast properties in Yorkshire and elsewhere. Temple Newsam has a remarkably good sequence of family portraits of the Ingram and Meynell families dating from from the late 16th to the early 20th centuries, most of which have been brought back to Temple Newsam in the past few years. These portraits are the main resource for interpreting the house for both children and adults. There are few portraits of children in the collection and this attractive example in Van Dyck dress will also become part of the ongoing evaluation of children in country house culture.