Sir Watkin made a Grand Tour to Europe from June 1768, returning by February the next year for his wedding in April. In Rome Pompeo Batoni painted him with some companions, and a classical subject, "Bacchus and Ariadne" was commissioned later, in 1774. The Rococo silver-gilt toilet service he gave to his first wife, by the London goldsmith Thomas Heming, is now in the National Museum of Wales. The Neoclassical grave monument for her is by Joseph Nollekens, in St Mary's Church, Ruabon, Clwyd.