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In his early twenties, Thomas Patch traveled to Rome, where he trained as an artist but was banished from the city in 1755 for committing homosexual acts. He moved instead to Florence and spent the rest of his life there. He is best known for ambitious caricature groups of British Grand Tourists such as this one, usually of people in the circle of Sir Horace Mann, who represented George II and George III at the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Mann appears twice in this painting: once as the tall man on the left and again in a portrait on the back wall. The fictive bust over the fireplace represents Patch himself. These satirical pictures were produced and consumed by the people being caricatured and are often filled with detailed in-jokes, making them hard to decipher. They provide a powerful counter-representation of the Grand Tour experience, contrasting with the earnest group portraits commissioned by travelers in Rome from artists such as Nathaniel Dance, an example of which hangs nearby.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016