Bernard Howard, Later 12th Duke of Norfolk

Bernard Edward Howard (1765–1842) was twenty-three and nearly three decades away from becoming the 12th Duke of Norfolk at the time of this portrait. His cousin, Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk, lacking legitimate sons, appears to have commissioned it to match his own portrait by Gainsborough in which he wears black Van Dyck dress, visualizing Bernard as the heir to his dukedom. Their attire also connects the cousins to ancestral portraits by Van Dyck (still in the collection of the Duke of Norfolk). Bernard sustained the family's Catholic tradition despite penalties for practicing the religion in England and worked to support the Catholic Emancipation Act. In 1829, as 12th Duke of Norfolk, he took his seat in the House of Lords, the first Catholic member of his family to do so since 1678. Though the fashion for Van Dyck dress in Georgian portraiture was considered by some to be outdated by the mid-1770s, it appears to have been a lifelong interest for Gainsborough. Perhaps, it was a means to circumvent the problem of fashion going out of style in portraiture. This appears to be one of the last portraits, if not the last, that Gainsborough painted before his death.