Portrait of Mr Dodshon Foster of Lancaster

William Tate, a well-known portrait-painter, was born and worked in Liverpool, a port with which Lancastrian merchants like Mr Dodshon Foster had strong connections. This half-length portrait depicts the sitter in a brown coat with orange waistcoat seated in a tropical landscape with his dog at his side. A prominent Quaker merchant and ship owner, Foster was involved with the transatlantic slave trade on which much of Lancaster's prosperity was based.