John Walter (or Wharton) Tempest was the son of John Tempest, Esquire of Sheburn, and brother of Frances Tempest, wife of Sir Henry Vane. He died on January 13, 1793 in Brighthelmstone, where he had moved for reasons of health. Grisenbach (1925, apud Singleton) correctly likens the composition to the neoclassical idea of antique reliefs. Unlike Gainsborough, who is primarily concerned with the possibilities of merging the subject and the background, Romney tries to explore radically linear solutions and compositions made up by strata that are integrated to the level surface of the canvas. The glossy and chromatic characteristics of the Gainsborough’s brushwork, his formally dynamic impasto give way to a léchée stroke, to a homogeneous range of low colors, and to a truly analytical scansion of the elements of the composition, aimed at endowing the portrait with a touch of “noble simplicity and peaceful greatness” typical of Winckelmann’s Rome. The portrait John Walter (or Wharton) Tempst, with his Horse on display at Masp was engraved in halftone by James Walker (c.1748-1808) in 1781.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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