James Northcote (22 October 1746 – 13 July 1831) was a British painter. He became a member of the Royal Academy in 1787, and a member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands in 1809.

Life and work

thumb|A portrait of Northcote painted by [[James Ramsay (painter)|James Ramsay between 1823 and 1825, from the collection of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter.]]

Northcote was born in Plymouth, and was apprenticed to his father, Samuel Northcote, a watchmaker. In his spare time, he drew and painted. In 1769 he left his father's work and set up as a portrait painter. Four years later he went to London and was admitted as a pupil into the studio and house of Sir Joshua Reynolds. At the same time he attended the Royal Academy Schools.

In May 1776, he left Reynolds' studio, and about two years later, having made some money by portrait painting back in Devon, he went to study in Italy. On his return to England, three years later, he revisited his native county, then settled in London, where John Opie and Henry Fuseli were his rivals. He was elected associate of the Academy in 1786, and full academician in the following spring. The Young Princes Murdered in the Tower, his first important work on a historical subject, dates from 1786, and it was followed by the Burial of the Princes in the Tower. Both paintings, along with seven others, were intended for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery.

Shortly afterwards Northcote began a set of ten subjects, entitled "The Modest Girl and the Wanton", which were completed and engraved in 1796. Among the productions of Northcote's later years are the Entombment and the Agony in the Garden, besides many portraits, and several animal subjects, such as Leopards, Dog and Heron, and Lion; these were more successful than the artist's attempts at more elevated subjects, as was indicated by Fuseli's caustic remark on examining the Angel opposing Balaam —"Northcote, you are an angel at an ass, but an ass at an angel." Northcote's works number about 2000, and he made a fortune of £40,000.

He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1787. He became a corresponding member, living abroad, of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands in 1809. His Portrait of Marc Isambard Brunel was exhibited at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition in 1814 and is now in the National Portrait Gallery. He sponsored the admission in 1829 of Thomas Sewell Robins to the Royal Academy Schools.

In 1841, a monument to Northcote by Francis Chantrey was erected in Exeter Cathedral.

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File:James Northcote - Sir Ralph Milbanke, Bt., in the Uniform of the Yorkshire (North Riding) Militia - Google Art Project.jpg|Portrait of Sir Ralph Milbanke, 1784

File:James Northcote (1746-1831) - The Murder of the Princes in the Tower, Edward V (1470–1483^), and His Brother Prince Richard (1473– - 485044 - National Trust.jpg|The Murder of the Princes in the Tower, 1786

File:NorthcoteDevergondee.jpg|The Wanton Reveling with her companions, 1796

File:Northcote-MurderPrinces.jpg|One of Northcote's illustrations to Shakespeare's Richard III

File:Walter Stirling.jpg|A portrait of Walter Stirling by James Northcote

File:Memorial to James Northcote in Exeter Cathedral.jpg|Memorial in Exeter Cathedral by Francis Chantrey

File:Moses Hawker, 1808 - James Northcote - 46 1925 9.jpg|A portrait of Moses Hawkes by James Northcote

File:The Honourable Miss Fox - James Northcote - 274 1982.jpg|The Honourable Miss Fox - James Northcote, 1810

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Writings

Northcote also sought fame as an author, and his first essays were contributions to the Artist, edited by Prince Hoare. In 1813 he embodied his recollections of his old master in a biography Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds. His Fables—the first series published in 1828, the second posthumously in 1833—were illustrated with woodcuts by Harvey from Northcote's own designs. In the production of his Life of Titian, his last work, which appeared in 1830, he was assisted by William Hazlitt, who previously, in 1826, had given to the public in the New Monthly Magazine his recollections of Northcote's pungent and cynical "conversations", causing some problems for the painter and his friends.

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File:Henry Fuseli by James Northcote.jpg|Portrait of Henry Fuseli, 1778

File:James Northcote (1746-1831) - Jael and Sisera - 03-881 - Royal Academy of Arts.jpg|Jael and Sisera, 1787

File:Northcote, James - Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois - Google Art Project.jpg|Francis Bourgeois, c.1794

File:James Northcote (1746-1831) - Lafayette in the Dungeon of Olmütz - 205.1 - Tabley House.jpg|Lafayette in the Dungeon of Olmütz, 1797

File:The Presentation of British Officers to Pope Pius VI, 1794 (cropped).jpg|The Presentation of British Officers to Pope Pius VI, 1794, 1800

File:Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth by James Northcote.jpg|Edward Pellew, 1804

File:James Northcote (1746-1831) - William Henry West Betty (1791–1874), ‘Master Betty’, as ‘Young Norval’ - 608962 - National Trust.jpg|Master Betty, 1804

File:Francis Burdett (Northcote).png|Francis Burdett, 1810

File:Sir Marc Isambard Brunel by James Northcote.jpg|Portrait of Marc Isambard Brunel, 1813

File:James Northcote (1746-1831) - Edmund Kean - NPG 6088 - National Portrait Gallery.jpg|Edmund Kean as Brutus, 1819

File:James Northcote (1746-1831) - The Marriage of Richard, Duke of York (1473-1484), 15 January 1478 - RCIN 405198 - Royal Collection.jpg|The Marriage of Richard, Duke of York, 1821

File:Portrait of John Ruskin at the age of three and a half.jpg|Portrait of John Ruskin, 1822

File:Ira Aldridge (1807-1867), in the character of Othello, Attributed to James Northcote (1746-1831).jpg|Ira Aldridge, 1826

File:James Northcote (1746-1831) - The Bill of Rights, 1688 - WOA 900 - Parliamentary Art Collection.jpg|The Bill of Rights, 1688, 1827

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Notes

References

  • Mark Ledbury (2014), James Northcote, History Painting, and the Fables, Yale Center for British Art in association with Yale University Press.
  • National Maritime Museum, London
  • National Portrait Gallery, London
  • Yale Center for British Art, New Haven