The Marquess and Marchioness of Buckingham, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the eighteenth-century context for Rembrandt's Bellona in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This article examines the eighteenth-century English collectors George and Mary Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess and Marchioness of Buckingham, and their acquisition of Rembrandt van Rijn’s imagined portrait of the goddess Bellona, situating it within their predominantly classical artistic tastes. Despite Rembrandt’s style often being viewed as opposed to classicism, the couple, influenced by Sir Joshua Reynolds—an artist known for his admiration of Rembrandt—collected several works attributed to Rembrandt at their estate, Stowe House. The paper contextualizes Bellona alongside the eighteenth-century vogue for portraying contemporary women as mythological figures, a trend Reynolds popularized through allegorical portraits such as Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse. It further explores how the Temple-Grenvilles’ classical interests coexisted with their appreciation for Rembrandt’s naturalistic and emotive style, revealing a nuanced collecting practice that bridged divergent artistic aesthetics of the period.