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| 1753-58 Self-Portrait when Young oil on canvas 73.7 x 61.6 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 & 2 also.
This is part 3 of an 8-part series on the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds:
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| mid 1760s Lady Juliana Penn (1729–1801) oil on canvas 75 x 61.5 cm English Heritage, Marble Hill House, Twickenham, UK |
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| 1761 Lady Anstruther oil on canvas 126.4 x 115.5 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| 1761 Lady Elizabeth Keppel oil on canvas (size not given) Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, UK |
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| 1761 The Honourable Sir John Cust (1718–1770), 3rd Bt of Pinchbeck and 6th Bt of Humby, in Speaker's Robes oil on canvas 339 x 252 cm National Trust, Belton House, Grantham, UK |
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| 1761 Thomas Fane (1700–1771), 8th Earl of Westmorland oil on canvas 225 x 135 cm National Trust, Antony, Torpoint, UK |
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| 1761 William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath oil on canvas 154.9 x 147.3 cm National Portrait Gallery, London |
1761-66 The Honourable Henry Fane (1739–1802) with Inigo Jones and Charles Blair: The product of five years of work, this is Reynolds’s largest group portrait. Expressing carefully calibrated social hierarchies and emotional ties, Reynolds arranged the three men in a fictional landscape setting. Reynolds would have based his composition on individual sittings in the studio, subsequently arranging the figures with such props of aristocratic leisure as the greyhound, wineglasses, and silver ewer.
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| 1761-66 The Honourable Henry Fane (1739–1802) with Inigo Jones and Charles Blair oil on canvas 254.6 x 360.7 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| 1761-66 The Honourable Henry Fane (1739–1802) with Inigo Jones and Charles Blair detail |
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| 1761-66 The Honourable Henry Fane (1739–1802) with Inigo Jones and Charles Blair detail |
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| 1762 William Markham (1719–1807), Archbishop of York oil on canvas 76.2 x 62.2 cm Christ Church, University of Oxford, UK |
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| c1762-64 Miss Nelly O'Brien oil on canvas 144.5 x 120 cm The Wallace Collection, London |
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| 1762-74 Anthony Chamier oil on canvas 128.4 x 102.2 cm The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas |
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| c1762 William, Viscount Pulteney oil on canvas 92.7 x 71.8 cm Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
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| 1763 Charles Carroll of Carrollton oil on canvas 76.8 x 64.1 cm Yale Center for British Art, Newhaven, CT |
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| 1763 Isabella Hay (1742–1808), Countess of Erroll oil on canvas 129.5 x 102.9 cm Glasgow Museums Resource Centre (GMRC), UK |
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| 1763-64 Mrs Susanna Hoare and Child oil on canvas 148 x 122 cm The Wallace Collection, London |
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| c1763-64 Kitty Fisher oil on canvas 99 x 77.4 cm Bowood House, Wiltshire, UK |
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| 1763-65 Lady Diana Beauclerk (1734–1808) oil on canvas 127 x 101.6 cm English Heritage, Kenwood, London |
1763-65 Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces: Dressed in Classically inspired robes, Lady Sarah Bunbury pours a libation of oil as an offering to the Three Graces, positioned behind her. Her soon-to-be husband, Charles Bunbury, commissioned this marriage portrait, making her association with the Graces—symbols of fertility and attendants to the Roman goddess of love, Venus—all the more appropriate.
The first president of the Royal Academy in London, Sir Joshua Reynolds urged his fellow artists to paint historical and edifying subjects based on the art of antiquity and the Renaissance. As a portrait painter, he developed a grand style that ennobled the genre by giving his sitters Classical attributes and poses.
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| 1763-65 Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces oil on canvas 242.6 x 151.5 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| 1763? Mrs Richard Cumberland oil on canvas 74.9 x 63.5 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| c1763 Mrs John Hope, 1742 - 1767 oil on canvas 76.2 x 63.5 cm Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edingburgh, UK |
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| c1763 The Earl and Countess of Mexborough with Their Son, Lord Pollington (1719–1778) oil on canvas 233.7 x 292.1 cm Doddington Hall, Lincoln, UK |
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| c1763 The Earl and Countess of Mexborough detail |
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| 1764 Anne Dashwood (1743–1830), later Countess of Galloway oil on canvas 133.4 x 118.7 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| 1764 or 1766 Admiral Sir Robert Kingsmill oil on canvas 74.9 x 62.2 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| 1764 Robert Hay Drummond, 1711 - 1776. Archbishop of York oil on canvas 127 x 101.6 cm Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edingburgh, UK |
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| 1764-65 Augustus Keppel, Viscount Keppel oil on canvas 76.2 x 63.5 cm National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| 1764-65 Maria, Countess Waldegrave oil on canvas 91.5 x 71.5 cm Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand |
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| c1764-67 Henry, 8th Lord Arundell of Wardour oil on canvas 238.7 x 147.3 cm Dayton Art Institute, Ohio |
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| 1764-68 Mrs Abington (c.1737–1815), as the Comic Muse oil on canvas 236 x 147.5 cm National Trust, Waddesdon Manor, near Aylesbury, UK |
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| before 1765 William Augustus (1721–1765), Duke of Cumberland, KG oil on canvas 221 x 129 cm Huntingdon Town Hall, Cambridgeshire, UK |
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| 1765 John Julius Angerstein oil on canvas 91.6 x 71.3 cm Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri |
1765 John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore: Reynolds’s striking full-length shows, Lord Dunmore, a Highland magnate who served as colonial governor of New York and Virginia. In Virginia, he defended colonists moving into lands obtained by Treaty from the Native American Iroquois confederacy. Other Native Americans, however, attacked and enslaved some settlers before being brutally suppressed by Dunmore’s forces. Both sides considered their actions legitimate self-defence, but the Native American defeat continued a tragic pattern of dispossession by European settlers. After the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, Dunmore lost the support of the colonists. To rebuild his army, he offered freedom to enslaved people who would fight against the revolutionaries – the first large-scale emancipation in the history of Colonial America.
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| 1765 John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore oil on canvas 238.1 x 146.2 cm Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edingburgh, UK |
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| 1765 Miss Beatrix Lister oil on canvas 74.9 x 62.2 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| 1765 Mr. James Bourdieu oil on canvas 128 x 103 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| 1765 Richard Croftes of West Harling, Norfolk oil on canvas 130 x 114 cm (Sold at auction - location not found) |
1765 Sir James Hodges: This is an official portrait of Sir James Hodges in his official role as Town Clerk and Deputy Chamberlain of the City of London. His robes are worn over a claret-coloured velvet suit with lace ruffles. On his head he wears a powdered bob-wig. The pose adopted by Hodges is common in Reynolds's portraits of men in public office, one hand resting on a table strewn with official papers, the other grasping an official looking document.
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| 1765 Sir James Hodges oil on canvas 127 x 101.6 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| 1765 Tysoe Saul Hancock, his wife Philadelphia, their daughter Elizabeth and their Indian maid Clarinda (details not found) |
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| 1765 Tysoe Saul Hancock etc detail |
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| 1765 Tysoe Saul Hancock etc detail |
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| 1765-66 Portrait of James Bourdieu oil on canvas 126 x 103 cm Museo Del Prado, Madrid, Spain |
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| c1765 Admiral Sir Charles Saunders (c.1713–1775) oil on canvas 127 x 101.5 cm National Maritime Museum, London |
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| 1766-67 Warren Hastings oil on canvas 126.4 x 101 cm National Portrait Gallery, London |
1767 before George Bridgeman: was Surveyor of the Royal Gardens. He entered the army, getting his commission as ensign in the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards on 29 July 1751, and as lieutenant 13 June 1761. He inherited the Clifton-upon-Dunsmore estate Warwickshire, from his uncle, Dr Roger Bridgeman DD. who had died unmarried and was buried 20 June 1750. George Bridgeman himself died unmarried at Lisbon 26 Dec 1767, when his Clifton estate was passed onto his elder brother, Sir Henry Bridgeman who eventually sold the property.
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| before 1767 George Bridgeman (1727–1767) oil on canvas 76.2 x 61 cm Weston Park, Shifnal, Sheffield, UK |
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| 1767 Elizabeth, Lady Amherst (1740-1830) (nee Elizabeth Cary) oil on cavas 75 x 62 cm location unknown |
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