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| Sir Joshua Reynolds by Archibald Robertson miniature on ivory 7.5 x 6 cm |
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 - 5 also.
This is part 6 of an 8-part series on the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds:
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| 1779 Sir John Macpherson, 1745 - 1821. Governor-General of India oil on canvas 76.2 x 63.5 cm Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, UK |
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| 1779-80 Theory oil on canvas 178 x 179 cm The Royal Academy, London |
1779-80 Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend, Later Marchioness Townshend
Anne Montgomery (1752?-1819) was the second of three beautiful daughters of an Irish peer. Celebrated as the “Irish Graces,” the sisters were immortalised in 1773 by Sir Joshua Reynolds in a grand-manner portrait entitled Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen (London, The Tate Gallery). That same year Anne became the second wife of George, fourth Viscount Townshend, and later Marquess Townshend. In 1779-1780 she sat to Reynolds for this elegant, full-length portrait. Conceived as a pendant to that of her husband (Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario), both figures are rendered in rich, forceful colour, posed in a sylvan setting, and draped with the ermine mantle symbolic of their temporal rank. Although the sitter's simple gown is meant to suggest a timeless, classical ideal, Reynolds has embellished it with elements of Turkish fancy dress, popular in England during this period. Her hairstyle is fashionably contemporary.
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| 1779-80 Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend, later Marchioness Townshend oil on cnavas 241.3 x 147.3 cm Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco |
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| 1780 William Strahan oil on canvas 91.4 x 71.1 cm National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| 1780 William Frederick (1776–1834), 2nd Duke of Gloucester oil on canvas 136 x 98 cm Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK |
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| 1780 The Ladies Waldegrave oil on canvas 143 x 168.3 cm Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edingburgh, UK |
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| 1780 Charity oil on canvas 95 x 74.5 cm National Trust, Petworth House, Petworth, UK |
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| 1780 Admiral Viscount Keppel oil on canvas 124.5 x 99.1 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| 1780-81 Master Bunbury oil on canvas 76.5 x 63.8 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA |
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| c1780 Self-portrait oil on panel 127 x 101.6 cm Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| c1780 Portrait of a Lady oil on canvas 62.2 x 50.8 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA |
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| c1780 Mrs. Fox oil on canvas 74.9 x 62.2 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| 1780-82 Lady Elizabeth Compton oil on canvas 240 x 149 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| c1780 Sir William Chambers, R.A. oil on panel 129 x 103.2 cm Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| 1781 Charles Burney oil on canvas 74.9 x 61 cm National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| 1781 Lady Elizabeth Seymour-Conway oil on canvas 86 x 71 cm The Wallace Collection, London |
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| 1781 Major General Stringer Lawrence (1697–1775) Commander-in-Chief in the East Indies (1752–1754 & 1761–1766) oil on canvas 79 x 66 cm The British Library, London |
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| 1781 Mrs Mary Nesbitt oil on canvas 76.5 x 63.2 cm The Wallace Collection, London |
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| 1781 Thaïs oil on canvas 229.5 x 145 cm National Trust, Waddesdon Manor, near Aylesbury, UK |
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| 1781-82 Frances, Countess of Lincoln oil on canvas 86.2 x 72 cm The Wallace Collection, London |
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| 1781-82 Lady Frances Finch oil on canvas 142.1 x 113.3 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia |
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| 1781-82 Lavinia Bingham, Countess Spencer (1762-1831) oil on canvas (size and location not found) |
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| 1781-82 Professor Adam Ferguson (Adhamh MacFhearghais) 1723 - 1816, Philosopher and author oil on canvas 75.9 x 63.5 cm Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, UK |
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| 1781-82 The Infant Academy oil on canvas 114.3 x 142.3 cm English Heritage, Kenwood, London |
c1781 A Fortune-Teller
This is one of three known versions of the original, painted around c.1781. A fortune-teller is shown reading the palm of the young woman seated on her lover’s lap, gleefully gazing out at the viewer. While her companion looks alarmed in reaction to the fortune teller’s forebodingly raised finger. The subject of the fortune-teller was a popular trend within European Baroque art. Similar compositions can be found in the work of Caravaggio (1571–1610), Bartolomeo Manfredi (1582–1622) and Simon Vouet (1590–1627). Through this painting, Reynolds’ introduced the subject to the 18th-century English audience. The boy’s attire also evokes an earlier 17th-century style. He wears a soft-crowned, round-brimmed red cap adorned with ostrich plumes and appears to be wearing an armoured breastplate over a billowing red shirt, adding to the theatrical and fanciful nature of the painting.
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| c1781 A Fortune-Teller oil on canvas 114.3 x 139.8 cm English Heritage, Kenwood, London |
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| 1782 Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, later 10th Duke of Hamilton and 7th Duke of Brandon (1767 - 1852) oil on canvas 67.5 x 53.5 cm Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, UK |
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| before 1782 Captain Hugh Bonfoy (c.1720–1782) oil on canvas 124.5 x 99.6 cm Port Eliot, Saltash Plymouth, UK |
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| 1782 Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Harrington and Marcus Richard Fitzroy Thomas oil on canvas 236.2 x 142.2 cm Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT |
1782 Captain George K. H. Coussmaker
With legs elegantly crossed as he leans against a tree, the young army captain in this portrait embodies aristocratic self-possession and nonchalance. Reynolds’s ambitions for the portrait come across in the number of sittings he required to complete it: twenty-one appointments with Coussmaker between February and April of 1782, and as many as eight sessions with his horse. Portraits such as these commanded exceptionally high prices from American collectors in the late nineteenth century, as they sought to appropriate the perceived elegance and refinement of the British upper classes.
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| 1782 Captain George K. H. Coussmaker 1 (1759–1801) oil on canvas 238.1 x 145.4 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| 1782 Colonel Tarleton oil on canvas 236 x 145.5 cm The National Gallery, London |
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| Exhibited 1782, Lady Talbot oil on canvas 234.3 x 188 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| 1782 General Sir Banastre Tarleton oil on canvas 236 x 145 cm The National Gallery, London |
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| 1782 or later Mrs. George Baldwin (Jane Maltass, 1763–1839) Workshop of Sir Joshua Reynolds oil on canvas 91.8 x 74 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| 1782 William (Thomas) Beckford oil on canvas 72.7 x 58.4 cm National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| 1782 William, 2nd Earl of Shelbourne oil on canvas 124.2 x 101.2 cm Wycombe Museum, High Wycombe, UK |
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| 1782-83 The Angerstein Children oil on canvas 140.5 x 11.2 cm English Heritage, Kenwood, London |
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| 1782-87 Lord and Lady Ashburton oil on canvas 129.5 x 188.6 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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| 1782-87 Lord and Lady Ashburton detail |
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| 1782-87 Lord and Lady Ashburton detail |
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| 1783 Admiral Lord Hood oil on canvas 127.2 x 100.9 cm Manchester Art Gallery, UK |
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| 1783 Edward Eliot (1727–1804), 1st Lord Eliot oil on canvas 124.6 x 99.2 cm The Box, Plymouth, UK |
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| 1783 Mrs.(Sarah) Siddons as the Tragic Muse oil on canvas The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA |
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| 1783-84 Mrs Mary Robinson oil on canvas 77 x 63.5 cm The Wallace Collection, London |
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| c1783-84 Lavinia (Bingham), Countess Spencer, and John Charles Spencer, Viscount Althorp, later Earl Spencer oil on canvas 147.3 x 109.9 cm The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA |
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| c1783 Sir Abraham Hume oil on canvas 69.8 x 55.2 cm Tate Gallery, London |
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