Stephen Beckingham, a Kent landed gentleman, was the only child of Stephen Beckingham the Elder (q.v.) and his first wife, Mary Cox, whose wedding in 1729 was depicted by Hogarth (Metropolitan Museum, New York, 36.111). He was at Trinity College Oxford and admitted to Lincoln's Inn, London in 1748. He embarked on the Grand Tour after finishing his education at Leipzig in 1751 and the following year was portrayed in Rome by Pompeo Batoni (Private Collection). His country seat was Bourne Park, near Canterbury, painted by Wilson c. 1757-58 (P73). Two years later he is known to have purchased several Wilson drawings through the agency of Thomas Jenkins. He was in correspondence with Wilson and commissioned two further as yet unidentified landscapes from him. In addition, he is known to have bought four large landscapes by Wilson in or around 1754, two of which (P66 and P67) were sold at Christie's on 7th June 1845 from the estate of Thomas Wright, Wilson's biographer. A third was probably P53.
See further Clark & Bowron 1985, p. 254, cat. 164.
