Print. Titled only 'Admiral Rainier', the source of this print is as yet unidentified but it was probably for a 19th-century book publication. Despite superficial appearances, it is almost certainly not copied from the 1824 mezzotint by Charles Turner intended for Brenton's 'Naval History' (see PAD4288) but from its prime - though perhaps not sole - source: i.e. it appears to be a more accurate replication than Turner's.

The original is an oil painting of c.1799-1804 attributed to Thomas Hickey, now in the College of Optometrists, London. It was in possession of the sitter's friend Basil Cochrane when Turner based his print on it, then passed down by descent into the Cochrane-Baillie family and was on loan to the NMM from 1951 to 1986 with three other Cochrane naval portraits. When sold at Christie's, London, on 1 March 1991 it was acquired by the College of Optometrists for their interest in the sitter's spectacles, which have 'Martin's margins', translucent shading rims devised by Benjamin Martin to reduce glare. Rainier's eyesight was clearly poor: the only earlier known portrait of him (as a captain in the late 1770s and formerly attributed to Gilbert Stuart) also shows him in similar spectacles. That one is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.