Portrait of John Scott, 1st Earl of Clonmell (1739-1798), Half-length, wearing a dark coat and white jabot, Oil on canvas, oval. Provenance: Probably commissioned by the sitter; by descent to Rupert Charles Scott, 7th Earl of Clonmel; by descent to his daughter, Audrey Moulie Estelle who married Henry Christian Seymour Coombe, Scardroy Lodge, Scotland; by descent and then sold at Sotheby’s London 2009, bought by the present owner. A judge and politician, the sitter was the third d son of Thomas Scott (d. 1763) County Kilkenny. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, from which he graduated in 1760, he later studied at Middle Temple and was called to the Irish Bar in 1765. Dubbed ‘Copper-faced Jack’ for his tenacity in his professional life, his diaries reveal a driven, though private man. In 1767 he married Catherine Maryanne, daughter of Thomas Mathew of Thomastown, County Tipperary; later in 1779 he married Margaret, daughter of Patrick Lawless, a Dublin banker. By his second marriage he had a son, Thomas (1783-1838) who succeeded him as 2nd Earl, and a daughter Charlotte (1787-1846), who married John Pyndar, 3rd Earl Beauchamp. Scott is recorded as having sat for Stuart (see Sotheby 2nd November 1965, lot 71) as did both his children