When George III was asked by Lord Eglinton to sit for the most fashionable portrait painter of the day, Joshua Reynolds, he replied: ‘Mr Ramsay is my painter, my Lord.’ Reynolds tried to gain royal notice with two speculative ventures – a portrait of George III as Prince of Wales (OM 1011, 401034) and an oil sketch for a depiction of his marriage to Queen Charlotte (OM 1012, 404353) – both of which remained on his hands. Reynolds was knighted by George III, made first president of the Royal Academy and Principal Painter to the King upon Ramsay’s death in 1784, but never asked to paint anything. That the Royal Collection has a fine group of Reynolds is entirely thanks to George IV, who commissioned portraits at the end of the artist’s life and acquired many examples of his earlier work. This is one of a group of highly personal works (OM 1008, 400699, OM 1011, 401034, OM 1029-31, 404695-6 and 405712) obtained by him at various times from Reynolds’s niece and heiress, Mary Palmer, Marchioness of Thomond (1750-1820). This is a copy of Guido Reni's famous painting in S. Maria della Concezione, Rome, which Reynolds executed in 1750 during his years of study in Italy. The archangel appears wearing classical armour and a red cloak, his left foot upon the head of the dragon which is in the form of a man with wings and a tail, lying face on rocks; he holds the dragons chains in his left hand, a sword raised in his right.