Thomas Patch was born in Exeter, then traveled to Rome in 1747, where he met Joshua Reynolds and worked in the studio of the French landscape painter Claude-Joseph Vernet. Expelled from the Papal States in 1755, probably on grounds of ‘moral turpitude’ (E. Waterhouse, The Dictionary of British 18th Century Painters in oils and crayons, Woodbridge, 1981, p. 69), he settled in Florence establishing a successful painting practice helped by his friendship with Sir Horace Mann, the British Envoy to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which gave him introductions to the touring British milordi. The latter were a key source of patronage and it was principally for this group that Patch ...