Colonel Acland and Lord Sydney: The Archers
- Artist: Sir Joshua Reynolds
- Date: 1769
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 2360 x 1800 mm (unconfirmed)
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the “Colonel Acland and Lord Sydney: The Archers” by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Painted in 1769, it is a large, life‑size double portrait that places two young aristocrats, Colonel John Dyke Acland and Lord Dudley Alexander Sydney Cosby, in the midst of a dramatic, quasi‑historical hunt. Reynolds invents their costumes, blending Renaissance and medieval elements, and has them chase a trail of dead game across an ancient forest, a visual reminder of their noble blood and their right to hunt.
The scene celebrates a deep friendship, linking the men to an imagined chivalric past where young lords pursued “manly” activities together. Reynolds’ composition is tightly organized, echoing the dramatic scale of Titian’s mythological paintings, and shows his ambition to elevate portraiture to the level of history painting. It was produced in August, a month he usually reserved for personal projects, shortly after he became the first President of the Royal Academy. The work debuted at the Academy’s second annual exhibition in 1770 and remained in Reynolds’s studio for several years before being purchased in 1779 by Acland’s widow to honor her late husband.
The painting’s portrayal of archery reflects the period’s renewed aristocratic enthusiasm for the sport, a fashionable symbol of virility and romance. Reynolds’ masterful use of light, color, and gesture makes this work a standout example of late eighteenth‑century British portraiture.
See it in person
Colonel Acland and Lord Sydney: The Archers is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
