Sir Sampson Gideon and an unidentified companion, 1767 (oil on canvas)

This painting is a document of the Grand Tour, and is one of Pompeo Batoni’s finest portraits of an English visitor to Rome. The seated figure is Sir Sampson Gideon (1745–1824), the son of a wealthy financier of Portuguese origin. Although Sir Sampson visited Rome in 1766, the picture, dated 1767, was completed after his return to England. He is depicted showing to his companion a miniature that represents Sir Sampson’s wife, Maria, whom he married in December 1766. Sampson Gideon was a British-born Sephardic Jewish banker, who bankrolled the Hanovarian-Whig government's suppression of the Jacobite Rising of 1745, subsequently becoming a trusted "adviser of the Government," and a supporter of the Jew Bill of 1753.