Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Thomas Pardoe (1770-1823) was employed as a painter at the Cambrian Pottery, Swansea, from about 1795 to 1809. He then worked freelance in Bristol, before returning to Wales in the winter of 1820-1 where he decorated the remaining stock of porcelain at Nantgarw until his death. This picture, which is almost certainly a self-portrait, belongs to a tradition of portraits of collectors and artists which originated in sixteenth-century Italy.