William Byrd, II (1674–1744)

Accession number: 1973.6

To English contemporaries William Byrd (1674–1744) seemed "a very polite, ingenious man" and one "of good fortune," but "very curious" because a colonial. In London Byrd faced limitations imposed by his colonial roots, yet he struggled doggedly there for unattainable goals. What social achievement he realized is suggested in this image.

Byrd's path through London society had not been without anguish. Sent to be educated in England at the tender age of seven, Byrd had turned for guidance to courtesy books that preached the gentlemanly virtues of moderation and acceptance of fate. In a written self-description, he confessed a striving for "the highest pitch of achievement" and admitted as well sufficient disappointments to be "sorely sensible of Injuries."

Adding that "he knows the world perfectly well and thinks himself a citizen of it," Byrd described himself as neither a colonial nor an Englishman, but a man lost between two worlds. The ship in the painting points to the dilemma. By 1724, however, Byrd was approaching a new maturity: he would soon accept his fate—as much economic as social—as a prominent Virginian able to live "in great luxury" in a provincial setting.

Byrd commissioned this portrait as a gift to his close friend Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery.

Image rights owned by the Virginia Historical Society. Rights and reproductions