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| c1775 Self-Portrait as a Deaf Man oil on canvas 75.9 x 63.4 cm Tate Gallery, London |
Sir Joshua Reynolds was the leading English portraitist of the 18th century. Through study of ancient and Italian Renaissance art, and of the work of Rembrandt, Rubens, and Van Dyck, he brought great variety and dignity to British portraiture. He was born at Plympton in Devon, the son of a headmaster and fellow of Balliol College, Oxford: a more educated background than that of most painters.
He was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portraitist Thomas Hudson, who also trained Joseph Wright of Derby. He spent 1749-52 abroad, mainly in Italy, and set up practice in London shortly after his return. He soon established himself as the leading portrait painter, though he was never popular with George III. He was a key figure in the intellectual life of London, and a friend of Dr Johnson.
When the Royal Academy was founded in 1768, Reynolds was elected its first President. Although believing that history painting was the noblest work of the painter, he had little opportunity to practise it, and his greatest works are his portraits. His paintings are not perfectly preserved due to faulty technique. The carmine reds have faded, leaving flesh-tones paler than intended, and the bitumen used in the blacks has tended to crack. The National Gallery, London
For more biographical details see part 1, and for earlier works see parts 1 -3 also.
This is part 4 of an 8-part series on the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds:
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| 1767-74 John Manners (1721–1770), Marquess of Granby oil on canvas 245 x 207 cm Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK |
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| before1768 Charles Smith (1688–1768), Merchant and Banker oil on canvas 76.2 x 63.5 cm City Art Centre, Edinburgh, UK |
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| 1768 George Capel, Viscount Malden (1757–1839), and Lady Elizabeth Capel (1755–1834) oil on canvas 181.6 x 145.4 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| 1768 Sir Jeffrey Amherst oil on canvas 74 x 62.2 cm National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa, ON |
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| c1768-69 Recovery from Sickness, an Allegory oil on canvas 70.8 x 91.1 cm Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
c1768-69 Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn and his Mother: Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn was a hugely wealthy Welsh landowner, and a member of the ‘Honourable and Loyal Society of Ancient Britons’. Reynolds shows him with his mother. In the background is the Welsh fortress of Dinas Bran, associated with the Welsh kingdom before the English conquest in the thirteenth century. Williams-Wynn commissioned two paintings of the same view from the landscape painter Richard Wilson. Sir Watkin was proud of his descent from the ancient British and Welsh kings, but he was also a sophisticated London gentleman with a grand house in the West End designed by the architect Robert Adam.
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| c1768-69 Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn and his Mother oil on canvas 238.1 x 181,6 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| 1769 Captain Philemon Pownall oil on canvas 239 x 148 cm Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany |
1769 Colonel Acland and Lord Sydney: This large double portrait depicts on a life-size scale two young aristocrats, Dudley Alexander Sydney Cosby, Lord Sydney (1732–1774), shown on the left, and Colonel John Dyke Acland (1746-1778) leaping forward on the right. Dressed in quasi-historical clothing invented by the artist, they are mimicking a medieval or Renaissance hunt; the dead game they leave in their trail underlining their noble blood and aristocratic right to hunt. The painting celebrates the men’s friendship by linking it to an imaginary chivalric past, when young lords pursued ‘manly’ activities together against a backdrop of ancient forest. The two subjects run and take aim in perfect rhythmic harmony; at one with each other and joint masters over nature.
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| 1769 Colonel Acland and Lord Sydney: The Archers oil on canvas 236 x 180 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| 1769 Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle oil on canvas 240 x 147.5 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| 1769 John Hope, 1739 - 1785 oil on canvas 76.2 x 63.5 cm Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edingburgh, UK |
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| 1769 or later Elizabeth Kerr (1745-1780), marchioness of Lothian oil on canvas 87.5 x 74.9 cm Museo Soumaya at Plaza Carso, Mexico City |
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| 1770-71 Richard Peers Symons, M.P. (Later Sr Richard Peers Symons, Baronet) oil on canvas 237.5 x 146.1 cm Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
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| 1770-76 The Calling of Samuel oil on canvas 36 x 29 cm The National Trust, Knole, Kent, UK |
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| 1770-80 Colonel John Hayes St. Leger oil on canvas 236 x 146 cm National Trust, Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury Vale, UK |
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| c1770 Crying Forfeits oil on canvas 127.6 x 102.2 cm Detroit Institute of Art, MI |
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| c1770 Doctor Johnson Arguing oil on canvas 75.6 x 62.9 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| c1770 Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) oil on canvas 75 x 62 cm National Trust, Knole, Sevenoaks, UK |
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| 1770s The Young Shepherdess oil on canvas 128 x 103 cm English Heritage, Kenwood, London |
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| 1771 Lady ‘Harriot’ Christian Henrietta Caroline Fox-Strangways, Mrs John Dyke Acland (1749/50-1815) oil on canvas 127 x 101.5 cm National Trust, Killerton, Devon, UK |
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| 1771 Venus Chiding Cupid for Learning to Cast Accounts oil on canvas 101 x 97.8 cm English Heritage, Kenwood, London |
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| 1771-73 Sir Joseph Banks, Bt oil on canvas 127 x 101.5 cm © National Portrait Gallery, London |
c1771-73 A Man’s Head: This small oil study of an old man's head angled sharply away from the viewer (in so-called profil perdu) was painted by Reynolds during the early 1770s from one of his favourite models, an old beggar named George White. Reynolds painted White frequently during the early 1770s in a number of different guises, including those of an apostle, a Renaissance Pope, a bandit and as the central figure in his first major history painting, Count Ugolino and his Children in the Dungeon (National Trust, Knole, Kent), exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1773.
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| c1771-73 A Man’s Head oil on canvas 58.4 x 45.7 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| 1772 Rev. William Robertson, 1721 - 1793. Historian. Principal of Edinburgh University oil on ncanvas 127.5 x 102.10 cm Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edingburgh, UK |
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| 1772-73 David Garrick: Eva Maria Garrick (née Veigel) oil on canvas 140.3 x 169.9 cm National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| 1772-73 The Strawberry Girl oil on canvas 97 x 84 cm The Wallace Collection, London |
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| 1772? Doctor Samuel Johnson oil on cavas 75.6 x 62,2 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| c1772 Lady Mary O'Brien, later Countess of Orkney oil on canvas 127 x 101.9 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA |
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| 1773 Anne Seymour Damer oil on canvas 125.7 x 99.1 cm Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT |
1773 or before Mrs Hartley as a Nymph: Elizabeth Hartley (1751-1824) is depicted here as a mythological figure. She holds a young Bacchus, the ancient Greco-Roman god of wine and festivity. By the time this painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1773, Hartley was one of the most celebrated actresses on the London stage. Reynolds exhibited this painting with the title ‘A Nymph with Young Bacchus’. It was not presented as a portrait of Mrs Hartley, but as a subject or ‘fancy’ picture. Such pictures incorporated imagined elements into a scene, particularly of women and children.
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| 1773 or before Mrs Hartley as a Nymph with a Young Bacchus oil on canvas 88.9 x 68.6 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| 1773 Boy with Grapes oil on canvas 77.5 x 64.5 cm Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
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| 1773 Giuseppe Baretti oil on canvas 73.7 x 62.2 cm Private Collection |
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| 1773 John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute oil on canvas 236.9 x 144.8 cm National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| 1773 Lady Cockburn and her Three Eldest Sons oil on canvas 141.5 x 113 cm The National Gallery, London |
1773 Three Ladies adorning a Term of Hymen:The aristocratic Montgomery sisters, Barbara, Elizabeth and Anne, are shown decorating a statue of Hymen, the Greek god of marriage and fertility, with flowers. They were often nicknamed ‘The Irish Graces’, referring to the Greek goddesses of beauty and the sisters’ childhood in Ireland. The women’s poses are more often associated with the Graces than portraits of aristocratic women. The painting was commissioned by Luke Gardiner, Elizabeth Montgomery’s fiancé. A letter written by Reynolds to Gardiner promised ‘it will be the best picture I ever painted.’
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| 1773 Three Ladies adorning a Term of Hymen oil on canvas 233.7 x 290.8 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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1773 Three Ladies adorning a Term of Hymen detail |
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1773 Three Ladies adorning a Term of Hymen detail |
1773-74 Mrs Tollemache as Miranda: The scene is from act I, scene 2 of the 'Tempest'. Miranda (Mrs Tollemache) wears a white dress with a gold sash. Caliban is on the ground beside her while Prospero is in the trees behind.
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| 1773-74 Mrs Tollemache as Miranda oil on canvas 241 x 147.4 cm English Heritage, Kenwood, London |
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| c1773 Miss Ridge oil on panel 74.3 x 63.5 cm Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
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| 1774 Edmund Burke, 1729 - 1797. Statesman, orator and author oil on canvas 76.2 x 63.5 cm Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edingburgh, UK |
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| c1774-75 Lord Henry Spencer and Lady Charlotte Spencer, later Charlotte Nares: The Young Fortune Tellers oil on canvas 142.9 x 113.7 cm The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA |
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| 1774-76 Mrs. Richard Paul Jodrell oil on canvas 77.5 x 64.1 cm Detroit Institute of Art, MI |
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| c1774 Lady Cockburn and her Three Eldest Sons oil on canvas 141 x 113 cm The National Gallery, London |
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| before 1775 Admiral Sir Charles Saunders oil on canvas 51 x 40.5 cm National Maritime Museum, London |
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