JOHN DOWNMAN, A.R.A. (PROBABLY RUABON, WALES 1750-1824 WREXHAM)

This portrait dates from the year after Thomas Monro graduated as MD in May 1787, and three years before he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1791. Monro inherited his passion for art, and the beginnings of his collection, from his father, also a physician. He is now best known for his school for watercolourists at Adelphi Terrace, at which both Thomas Girtin and J.M.W. Turner studied, founded in 1793. The relatively early date of this drawing in relation to Monro's journey through the art world suggests that it may well have been commissioned by his father.