Batoni's portrait of Edward Solly was painted in 1753-4 when the latter was visiting Rome, having arrived in Italy in the spring of 1753 aged 25, already a little older than many of the typical Milordi who undertook this journey as a rite of passage. He is shown dressed in a fashionable style known as à la hussar, his coat and waistcoat embellished with elaborate decorations borrowed from the Hungarian military uniform with its red collar, gold braid and frogging around the buttons. This fashion took hold after the War of Austrian Succession (1740-48) when the British were brought into contact with Hungarian troops and the popular image of Hungarian hussars as romantic and dashing led to the adoption of their uniform for masquerade wear.

Batoni was to use Solly's rather relaxed, insouciant pose for another portrait two or three years later when he painted John Hase, later John Lombe, (Bowron and Kerber no. 195, p. 234, ill) although in this later iteration the sitter leans against a parapet rather than a stack of books. The books, with their characteristic Italian bindings, and the quill pens may be no casual inclusion since, unlike some of his fellow travellers who simply saw the journey as an opportunity to break free from the constraints of home, Solly was a keen student and saw his sojourn in Italy as an opportunity to develop his interest in the Classical world of art and scholarship. He pursued this interest throughout his life: on his return to England he became a member of the Society of Antiquaries and years later in 1771 he was elected to its Council.

While he used the opportunity of his Grand Tour to study art and history, there were clearly lighter moments as well: he is recorded in Capua in May 1753, a town north of Naples renowned in classical times for its luxury and hedonism. In the 18th Century Capua was a stopping-off point for young Englishmen heading south towards Naples and promised a rather more informal and relaxed atmosphere than Rome. Solly's travelling companion was Charles Domville and the two men may well have encountered a number of other young British men enjoying the pleasures of Capua, as Robert Clements of Killadoon, Henry Willoughby of Birdsall, Sackville Tufton from Kent, David La Touche from Ireland and the 10th Earl of Pembroke were also there that spring. This is possibly the instigation for Solly commissioning the present portrait, as Batoni was beginning to make a considerable name for himself as a portraitist of Grand Tourists and on their arrival in Rome every one of this group of men was to sit to him.

Also a painter of religious, mythological and allegorical works, Pompeo Batoni turned to portraiture around 1750 and is now chiefly remembered for the remarkable record he left us of the gilded youth of Britain in the second half of the 18th Century (for around two thirds of his sitters were British) as well as representatives of most of the courts of Europe. He was not the only fashionable portraitist in Rome at the time, both Anton Raphael Mengs and Gabriel Blanchet enjoyed success with wealthy visitors as well, but he unquestionably made the genre his own.

The Solly family had for generations been wealthy businessmen and landowners in Kent and their family home, the Mote, was at Ash, near Sandwich. Edward was the youngest of the eight children of Richard Solly (1694-1729) and his wife Ann, née Hollis (1717-1776) and although his father died soon after Edward was born, he left the family well very provided for. In his youth Edward was briefly apprenticed to Jacob Chitty, a Merchant Taylor of Ironmonger Lane who traded cloth with the levant; later in his life he divided his time between Kent and London, continuing with the family's commercial interests, but it appears he never married and when he died his chattels - including this painting - were left to his oldest brother Isaac. Isaac Solly (1724-1802) was a merchant trading in Baltic timber whose son, named Edward like his uncle, followed in his father's footsteps. There was a demand for timber to feed the ship-building industry during the Napoleonic Wars so business burgeoned and in due course the younger Edward (1776-1844) moved to Berlin in order to direct his business interests. Over this period he made a name for himself as one of the great collectors of the 19th Century, building up a truly vast collection of Italian Trecento and Quattrocento paintings and works by early Netherlandish artists. When peace returned after the Napoleonic wars, the timber trade slumped as it was no longer required to support the fleet, and he sold his collection in 1821. Through the intermediary Gustav Waagen around 3000 works were acquired by King Frederick William III of Prussia and of these, 677 works were to form the core of the new Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. Undeterred, Solly formed a second collection on his return to England. It is tempting to speculate that his uncle's antiquarian interests – and perhaps even this portrait of him by Batoni – helped spark the younger Edward's interest in art and collecting.

The present work was unknown to scholarship until seen by Bowron and Kerber in the Summer of 2015, having remained in the Solly family collection since it was painted.