Omai by Sir Joshua Reynolds is a painting so special that it is unthinkable that it could ever leave the UK. When I was taken to see it recently by National Portrait Gallery director Nicholas Cullinan I was left stunned. Seeing it where it currently hangs in the gallery, which is undergoing a refit to reopen on 22 June, is a breathtaking experience. It showcases the genius of Reynolds at the height of his powers.
And yet not long ago it looked like we might lose it. The National Portrait Gallery has been fighting for a way to keep it in this country, to be enjoyed by future generations, but at times it looked like it could not be saved. Recently, however, we have started to believe it might be possible. Yet more help is needed.
Back in the mid-1750s, Reynolds was the star portraitist in a country coursing with the surging energies and radical aspirations of the industrial revolution. A West Country headmaster’s son who never lost his Devonshire accent, he depicted so many of the grandees of his time that he would sometimes welcoming five sitters a day. Friends with Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke, they together formed a dining society of luminaries, The Club, that met in Soho’s Turk’s Head pub; their Latin toast, devised by the artist himself, was Esto perpetua – “Let it be perpetual”. Reynolds never married (his sexual orientation remains a mystery) but lived with his sister. Deaf in one ear and instantly recognisable thanks to his ever-present ear trumpet, he was knighted, became first president of the Royal Academy of Arts and Principal Painter in Ordinary to George III, a position that he first demanded and then complained that the “royal ratcatcher” was a better job: “If I had known what a shabby miserable place it is, I would not have asked for it.” He was irritated by the clumsy king (“I think a certain person is not worth speaking to, nor speaking of”) and, like his friend Burke, was first excited by the promise, then alarmed by the violence, of the French Revolution.
In 1774, a Polynesian in his early 20s named Omai, or Mai to give him his real name, arrived in London, only the second Polynesian to visit Europe. Born in Raiatea in the Polynesia Society Islands (still French today), a highly stratified society in which the ruling class were regarded as descendants of gods, he was the son of a mid-ranking courtier who was killed when the neighbouring Bora Borans attacked. After a series of skirmishes, Mai escaped to the nearby Tahiti just around the time British expeditions were investigating and claiming the islands in competition with the French. Though he was wounded by a British cannon in his first encounter with Europeans, Omai was keen to voyage to Britain on the HMS Adventure, one of the ships accompanying Captain Cook’s Endeavour, to raise arms to fight the Bora Borans.
In London he was lionised as a handsome figure from a fascinating distant world, but remained defiantly himself: he was “lively and intelligent,” wrote Fanny Burney and it was said that when he was presented to George III, he took the royal hand and said “How do, King Tosh!” Naturally Reynolds was keen to meet him and invited him to pose, making beautiful preparatory sketches in pencil: the portrait was not commissioned by any patron and when Omai returned to Polynesia (without any of the arms and army that he had hoped to raise) where he died two years later, Reynolds kept it in his studio until his own death in 1792.
It is the way the painting captures this complex cultural encounter that gives it its special significance. At 7ft high it is strikingly powerful, the greatest of Reynolds’ works. While many of the paintings of this period in British galleries depict dukes and countesses, this is a portrait of a person of colour. The figure of Omai, barefoot and wearing a cream toga-like robe, possesses an idealised majesty of the 18th century’s “noble savage” combined with a Roman senator’s adlocutio dignity amid an idealised Arcadian landscape. Yet Omai’s defiant and proud gaze makes him fearlessly himself. In other words, the portrait combines the confidence of Britain on the eve of world power, the majestic dignity of an adventurous Polynesian, the masterpiece of a genius – and the singular thrill of this incandescent meeting of all three. This makes it uniquely relevant and special in our era.
“The acquisition of this magnificent painting,” says Cullinan, “offers us a unique opportunity to share one of the most important, influential portraits in the history of British art with future generations.”
In March 2022 the government placed a temporary export bar on it to stop it going abroad. The National Heritage Memorial Fund has pledged £10m to help save the work, and Art Fund has given an exceptional grant of £2.5m – the largest in its history. Its valuation seems a lot in time of economic crisis yet it is in line with the market. But the painting hasn’t been saved yet. The temporary export bar is due to be lifted this week. So far, almost half of the £50m needed has been raised thanks to the generosity of over 1,500 individuals and foundations. As the excitement rises, the NPG is working through every option to ensure that this exceptional portrait is not lost – but saving it will only be possible through collective action and innovative ways. We’re exploring every route to ensure that the British public’s access to Omai will remain: Esto perpetua!
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Simon Sebag Montefiore is a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. To help, visit the Art Fund appeal.
