Joshua Reynolds

Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter who specialised in portraits. The art critic John Russell called him one of the major European painters of the 18th century, while Lucy Peltz says he was "the leading portrait artist of the 18th-century and arguably one of the greatest artists in the history of art." He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting, which depended on idealisation of the imperfect. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts and was knighted by George III in 1769. He has been referred to as the 'master who revolutionised British Art.' Ellis Waterhouse estimated those works the painter did 'think worthy' at 'hardly less than a hundred paintings which one would like to take into consideration, either for their success, their originality, or their influence.' Of these, Portrait of Omai is probably his best known work and has been described by Simon Schama as "one of the greatest things British art has ever produced [and] one of the all time, timeless masterpieces that painting can produce." Waterhouse considered The Marlborough Family as 'the most monumental achievement of British portraiture' and that 'Reynolds' genius came to full flower in the diversity and geniality he was able to give to his full-length portraits' like Portrait of Philip Gell and Portrait of the Earl of Carlisle.

Thomas Lawrence rated Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse as "indisputably the finest female portrait in the world." adds that Portrait of Robert Orme was 'surely one of the great eighteenth-century European portraits.' The price paid for the exceptional Portrait of Omai in 2023 was £50 million – far more than had ever been paid for an 18th-century picture. This was followed two years later by the sale of the iconic full-length Portrait of Lady Worsley for £25 million. Also in 2025, the full-length Portrait of Mrs. Lloyd was acquired by the National Trust for acceptance in lieu of tax of £17.5 million by H M Government (the way the scheme is structured meant the open market price calculation of the picture would be substantially higher than £17.5 million.) Jonathan Jones says 'that puts Reynolds in the superstar category, way beyond his contemporaries, and competing with the likes of Damien Hirst and Lucian Freud.' 'Reynolds is not remote or staid at all. He's the portraitist of the Enlightenment, a daring artist who captured a daring age.'

Early life

thumb|Self-portrait, aged about 24

thumb|[[Plympton Grammar School|Old Grammar School, Plympton, founded 1658, built 1664, attended by Joshua Reynolds whose father was headmaster]]

Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723,

One of his sisters, seven years his senior, was Mary Palmer, author of Devonshire Dialogue, whose fondness for drawing is said to have had much influence on Joshua as a boy. In 1740, she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshua's pupillage, and nine years later advanced money for his expenses in Italy. His other siblings included Frances Reynolds and Elizabeth Johnson.

As a boy, he also came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. Reynolds made extracts in his commonplace book from Theophrastus, Plutarch, Seneca, Marcus Antonius, Ovid, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Alexander Pope, John Dryden, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, and Aphra Behn and copied passages on art theory by Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy, and André Félibien. The work that came to have the most influence on Reynolds was Jonathan Richardson's An Essay on the Theory of Painting (1715). Reynolds' annotated copy was lost for nearly two hundred years until it appeared in a Cambridge bookshop, inscribed with the signature "J. Reynolds Pictor". It is now in the collection of the Royal Academy of Arts, London. where he spent two years, studying the Old Masters and acquiring a taste for the "Grand Style". Lord Edgcumbe, who had known Reynolds as a boy and introduced him to Keppel, suggested he should study with Pompeo Batoni, the leading painter in Rome, but Reynolds replied that he had nothing to learn from him. and Paris. He was accompanied by Giuseppe Marchi, then aged about 17. Following his arrival in England in October 1752, Reynolds spent three months in Devon before establishing himself in London the following year and remaining there for the rest of his life. He took rooms in St Martin's Lane, before moving to Great Newport Street; his sister Frances acted as his housekeeper. Lord Edgecumbe recommended William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire and Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton to sit for him, and other peers followed, including Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, third son of George II, in whose portrait, according to Nicholas Penny "bulk is brilliantly converted into power".

thumb|left|The Cottagers (1788)

Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, Reynolds painted large numbers of smaller works. In the late 1750s, at the height of the social season, he received five or six sitters a day, each for an hour.

The clothing of Reynolds' sitters was usually painted by either one of his pupils, or the specialist drapery painter Peter Toms. James Northcote, his pupil, wrote of this arrangement that "the imitation of particular stuffs is not the work of genius, but is to be acquired easily by practice, and this was what his pupils could do by care and time more than he himself chose to bestow; but his own slight and masterly work was still the best."

Although not known principally for his landscapes, Reynolds did paint in this genre. He had an excellent vantage from his house, Wick House, on Richmond Hill, and painted the view in about 1780.

thumb|left|[[The Age of Innocence (painting)|The Age of Innocence (). Reynolds emphasized the natural grace of children in his paintings.]]

Reynolds also was recognised for his portraits of children. He emphasised the innocence and natural grace of children when depicting them. His 1788 portrait, Age of Innocence, is his best known character study of a child. The subject of the painting is not known, although suggestions include Theophila Gwatkin, his great-niece, and Lady Anne Spencer, the youngest daughter of George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough.

The Club

Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday. He was gregarious and keenly intellectual, with many friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered among whom were Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Giuseppe Baretti, Henry Thrale, David Garrick, and artist Angelica Kauffman, exchanging his portrait of her for a portrait of him by Kauffman. Johnson said in 1778: "Reynolds is too much under [Charles James] Fox and Burke at present. He is under the Fox star and the Irish constellation (meaning Burke). He is always under some planet".

Because of his popularity as a portrait painter, Reynolds enjoyed constant interaction with the wealthy and famous men and women of the day, and it was he who brought together the figures of "The Club". It was founded in 1764 and met in a suite of rooms on the first floor of the Turks Head at 9 Gerrard Street, now marked by a plaque. Original members included Burke, Bennet Langton, Topham Beauclerk, Goldsmith, Anthony Chamier, Thomas Hawkins, and Christopher Nugent, to be joined by Garrick, Boswell, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In ten years the membership had risen to 35. The Club met every Monday evening for supper and conversation and continued into the early hours of Tuesday morning. In later years, it met fortnightly during Parliamentary sessions. When in 1783 the landlord of the Turks Head died and the property was sold, The Club moved to Sackville Street.

Royal Academy

thumb|The hall at [[Loton Park, . Showing, in situ, on the far wall Reynolds' Frances Anne Crewe (Miss Greville), as St. Genevieve ()]]

Reynolds was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society of Arts, helped found the Society of Artists of Great Britain, and in 1768 became the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, a position he was to hold until his death. In 1769, he was knighted by George III, only the second English artist to be so honoured. His Discourses, a series of lectures delivered at the academy between 1769 and 1790, are remembered for their sensitivity and perception. In one lecture, he expressed the opinion that "invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory." William Jackson in his contemporary essays said of Reynolds 'there is much ingenuity and originality in all his academic discourses, replete with classical knowledge of his art, acute remarks on the works of others, and general taste and discernment'.

Reynolds and the Royal Academy received a mixed reception. Critics included William Blake who published the vitriolic Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses in 1808. J. M. W. Turner and Northcote were fervent acolytes: Turner requested he be laid to rest at Reynolds' side, and Northcote, who spent four years as Reynolds' pupil, wrote to his family: "I know him thoroughly, and all his faults, I am sure, and yet almost worship him."

In 2018, the Royal Academy of Arts celebrated its 250th anniversary from its opening in 1768. This became an impetus for galleries and museums across the UK to celebrate "the making, debating and exhibiting art at the Royal Academy". Waddesdon Manor was amongst the historic houses that supported Sir Joshua Reynolds's influence at the academy, acknowledging how:

thumb|Reynolds's 'Mrs Sheridan in the character of St Cecilia' was considered by the artist's nephew as a 'sight worth coming to Devonshire to see, I cannot suppose that there was ever a greater Beauty in the world, nor even Helen or Cleopatra could have exceeded her', 1775, [[Waddesdon Manor.]]

<blockquote>[He] transformed British painting with portraits and subject pictures that engaged their audience's knowledge, imagination, memory and emotions... As an eloquent teacher and art theorist, he used his role at the head of the Royal Academy to raise the status of art and artists of Britain.</blockquote>

Lord Keppel

thumb|right|[[Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel|Lord Keppel (1779)]]

In the Battle of Ushant against the French in 1778, Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel commanded the Channel Fleet and the outcome resulted in no clear winner; Keppel ordered the attack be renewed and was obeyed except by Sir Hugh Palliser, who commanded the rear, and the French escaped bombardment. A dispute between Keppel and Palliser arose and Palliser brought charges of misconduct and neglect of duty against Keppel and the Admiralty decided to court-martial him. On 11 February 1779, Keppel was acquitted of all charges and became a national hero. One of Keppel's lawyers commissioned Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland to paint a portrait of Keppel, but Keppel redirected it to Reynolds. Reynolds alluded to Keppel's trial in the portrait by painting his hand on his sword, reflecting the presiding officer's words at the court-martial: "In delivering to you your sword, I am to congratulate you on its being restored to you with so much honour".

Principal Painter in Ordinary to the King

On 10 August 1784, Allan Ramsay died and the office of Principal Painter in Ordinary to King George III became vacant. Thomas Gainsborough felt that he had a good chance of securing it, but Reynolds felt he deserved it and threatened to resign the presidency of the Royal Academy if he did not receive it. Reynolds noted in his pocket book: "Sept. 1, 2½, to attend at the Lord Chancellor's Office to be sworn in painter to the King". It did not make Reynolds happy, however, as he wrote to Boswell: "If I had known what a shabby miserable place it is, I would not have asked for it; besides as things have turned out I think a certain person is not worth speaking to, nor speaking of", presumably meaning the King. Reynolds wrote to Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St Asaph, a few weeks later: "Your Lordship congratulation on my succeeding Mr. Ramsay I take very kindly, but it is a most miserable office, it is reduced from two hundred to thirty-eight pounds per annum, the Kings Rat catcher I believe is a better place, and I am to be paid only a fourth part of what I have from other people, so that the Portraits of their Majesties are not likely to be better done now, than they used to be, I should be ruined if I was to paint them myself". John Constable said in the 1830s that it was "almost a history of the defence of Gibraltar".

Later life

In 1789, Reynolds lost the sight of his left eye, which forced him into retirement. In 1791 James Boswell dedicated his Life of Samuel Johnson to Reynolds. Reynolds agreed with Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France and, writing in early 1791, expressed his belief that the ancien régime of France had fallen due to spending too much time tending, as he puts it, <blockquote>to the splendor of the foliage, to the neglect of the stirring the earth about the roots. They cultivated only those arts which could add splendor to the nation, to the neglect of those which supported it – They neglected Trade & substantial Manufacture ... but does it follow that a total revolution is necessary that because we have given ourselves up too much to the ornaments of life, we will now have none at all.</blockquote> When attending a dinner at Holland House, Fox's niece Caroline was sat next to Reynolds and "burst out into glorification of the Revolution – and was grievously chilled and checked by her neighbour's cautious and unsympathetic tone".

thumb|left|[[The Ladies Waldegrave (1780)]]

On 4 June 1791, at a dinner at the Freemasons' Tavern to mark the King's birthday, Reynolds drank to the toasts "GOD save the KING!" and "May our glorious Constitution under which the arts flourish, be immortal!", in what was reported by the Public Advertiser as "a fervour truly patriotick". Reynolds "filled the chair with a most convivial glee". He returned to town from Burke's house in Beaconsfield and Edmond Malone wrote that "we left his carriage at the Inn at Hayes, and walked five miles on the road, in a warm day, without his complaining of any fatigue".</blockquote> On 5 November, Reynolds, fearing he might not have an opportunity to write a will, wrote a memorandum intended to be his last will and testament, with Edmund Burke, Edmond Malone, and Philip Metcalfe named as executors. On 10 November, Reynolds wrote to Benjamin West to resign the presidency, but the General Assembly agreed he should be re-elected, with Sir William Chambers and West to deputise for him.

Doctors Richard Warren and Sir George Baker believed Reynolds' illness to be psychological and they bled his neck "with a view of drawing the humour from his eyes" but the effect, in the view of his niece, was that it seemed "as if the 'principle of life' were gone" from Reynolds. On New Year's Day 1792 Reynolds became "seized with sickness", and from that time onwards could not keep food down.

Reynolds was buried at St Paul's Cathedral. In 1903, a statue, by Alfred Drury, was erected in his honour in the Annenberg Courtyard of Burlington House, home of the Royal Academy. Around the statue are fountains and lights, installed in 2000, arranged in the pattern of a star chart at midnight on the night of Reynolds' birth. The planets are marked by granite discs, and the Moon by a water recess.

Personal characteristics

thumb|[[Wang-y-tong|Huang Ya Dong 'Wang-Y-Tong (1776)]]

In appearance Reynolds was not striking. Slightly built, he was about tall with dark brown curls, a florid complexion and features that James Boswell thought were "rather too largely and strongly limned." He had a broad face and a cleft chin, and the bridge of his nose was slightly dented; his skin was scarred by smallpox and his upper lip disfigured as a result of falling from a horse as a young man. Edmond Malone asserted however that "his appearance at first sight impressed the spectator with the idea of a well-born and well-bred English gentleman."

In his mature years he suffered from deafness, as recorded by Frances Burney, although this did not impede his lively social life. Renowned for his placidity, Reynolds often claimed that he "hated nobody". This may be self-idealisation. It is well known that he disliked George Romney, whom he referred to only as "the man in Cavendish Square" and whom he successfully prevented from becoming a member of the Royal Academy. He did not like Gainsborough, yet appreciated his achievements in the obituary he wrote of his rival. (Rump; Kidson). It is said that when he taught in one of his "discourses" that a painter should not amass too much of the colour blue in the foreground of an image, Gainsborough was prompted to paint his famous The Blue Boy.

Never quite losing his Devonshire accent, Reynolds was not only an amiable and original conversationalist, but a friendly and generous host, so that Frances Burney recorded in her diary that he had "a suavity of disposition that set everybody at their ease in his society", and William Makepeace Thackeray believed "of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finest gentleman". Dr Johnson commented on the "inoffensiveness" of his nature; Edmund Burke noted his "strong turn for humor". Thomas Barnard, who later became Bishop of Killaloe, wrote in his closing verses on Reynolds stating:

<blockquote><poem>Thou say'st not only skill is gained

But genius too may be attained

By studious imitation;

Thy temper mild, thy genius fine

I'll copy till I make them mine

By constant application.</poem></blockquote>

thumb|[[Portrait of Joshua Reynolds (Gilbert Stuart, 1784)]]

Some people, such as Hester Lynch Piozzi, construed Reynolds' equable calm as cool and unfeeling. It is to this lukewarm temperament that Frederick W. Hilles, Bodman Professor of English Literature at Yale attributes Reynolds' never having married. In the editorial notes of his compendium Portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hilles theorises that "as a corollary one might say that he [Reynolds] was somewhat lacking in a capacity for love", and cites Boswell's notary papers: "He said the reason he would never marry was that every woman whom he liked had grown indifferent to him, and he had been <u>glad</u> he did not marry her." Reynolds' own sister, Frances, who lived with him as housekeeper, took her own negative opinion further still, thinking him "a gloomy tyrant". The presence of family compensated Reynolds for the absence of a wife; he wrote on one occasion to his friend Bennet Langton, that both his sister and niece were away from home "so that I am quite a bachelor". Reynolds did not marry, and had no known children.

Biographer Ian McIntyre discusses the possibility of Reynolds having enjoyed sexual relations with certain clients, such as Nelly O'Brien (or "My Lady O'Brien", as he playfully dubbed her) and Kitty Fisher, who visited his house for more sittings than were strictly necessary. Dan Cruickshank in his book London's Sinful Secret summarised Reynolds as having visited and re-visited various reputed red light districts in London after his return from Italy as a possible contributor to his medical condition and appearance due to commonly contracted disease in those areas of London.

Regarding the British debate over the abolition of slavery, the abolitionist Thomas Clarkson wrote that Reynolds stated his opposition to the Atlantic slave trade at a dinner with a group of friends with Clarkson present. Clarkson had shown the group samples of cloth produced in Africa, and Reynolds "gave his unqualified approbation of the abolition of this cruel traffic". Reynolds also subscribed to the 1791 edition of Ottobah Cugoano's abolitionist work Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, and had a Black servant who joined his household around the mid-1760s. The servant's name is unknown despite Northcote suggesting in Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1813) that he modelled for several of Reynolds' paintings. Northcote also claimed in Memoirs that the servant had been brought to Britain by Mary Mordaunt, the wife of Valentine Morris, though the 1813 work contains "inconsistencies and conflicting chronologies".

File:Miss Bowles by Joshua Reynolds.jpg|Miss Bowles, Wallace Collection, 1775

File:InfantSamuel.jpg|The Infant Samuel (1776)

File:Joshua Reynolds - Portrait of Omai.jpg|Omai (1776)

File:Sir Joshua Reynolds - Sarah Campbell - Google Art Project.jpg|Sarah Campbell (1777)

File:Portrait of Jane, Countess of Eglinton by Sir Joshua Reynolds.jpg|Countess of Eglinton (1777)

File:Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) - A Fortune-Teller - 690 - Waddesdon Manor.jpg|A Fortune-Teller, 1777

File:Reynolds Sir Joshua-Lady Caroline Howard.jpg|Lady Caroline Howard (1778)

File:Jane Fleming.jpg|Jane, Countess of Harrington (1778)

File:Reynolds - 4th Duke of Marlborough and Family.jpg|The Marlborough Family (1778)

File:Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) - The Hon. Miss Monckton - N04694 - National Gallery.jpg|Portrait of Mary Monckton (1778)

File:Sir Joshua Reynolds - Lady Elizabeth Delmé and Her Children - Google Art Project.jpg|Lady Elizabeth Delmé and Her Children (1779)

File:Portrait of Sir William Chambers.png|Portrait of Sir William Chambers (1780)

File:Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) - The Death of Dido - RCIN 404696 - Royal Collection.jpg|The Death of Dido (1781)

File:Banastre-Tarleton-by-Joshua-Reynolds.jpg|Portrait of Banastre Tarleton, (1782), National Gallery

File:Colonel George K. H. Coussmaker, Grenadier Guards by Joshua Reynolds 1782.jpeg|Captain George K. H. Coussmaker (1782)

File:Sir Joshua Reynolds - Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Harrington - Google Art Project.jpg|Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Harrington (1782)

File:Lady Elizabeth Russell (Keppel) (1739-1768.jpg (1761 door Joshua Reynolds).jpg|Lady Elizabeth Keppel (1761)

File:Admiral Hood 1783.jpg|Admiral Hood (1783)

File:Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) - James Boswell - NPG 4452 - National Portrait Gallery.jpg|Portrait of James Boswell (1787)

File:Heads of Angels - Miss Frances (Gordon) by Sir Joshua Reynolds, PRA.jpg|Heads of AngelsMiss Frances (Gordon), (1787)

File:Maria Anne Fitzherbert1788.jpg|Portrait of Maria Fitzherbert, (1788)

File:Cupid and Psyche (Reynolds, 1789).jpeg|Cupid and Psyche, (1789)

File:Reynolds, Sir Joshua, The Infant Hercules, ca. 1785-89.jpg|The Infant Hercules (–1789), Princeton University Art Museum

File:Reynolds, Sir Joshua - Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse - Google Art Project.jpg|Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse (1789), The Huntington Library, San Marino, California

File:Lord Moira.jpg|Portrait of Lord Moira (1790)

File:Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) - Mrs Elizabeth Carnac - P35 - The Wallace Collection.jpg|Mrs Elizabeth Carnac (1775)

File:Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lady Elizabeth Compton, 1780-1782, NGA 104.jpg|Lady Elizabeth Compton, Countess of Burlington (1780-1782)

File:Joshua Reynolds - Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.jpg|Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (c.1775)

File:Reynolds - Jane Fleming, Countess of Harrington - Harewood House.jpg|Jane Fleming, Countess of Harrington (c.1775)

File:Ladyworsley.jpg|Portrait of Lady Worsley (1779)

File:Sir William Fawcett by Sir Joshua Reynolds.jpg|Sir William Fawcett (1784)

File:Sir Joshua Reynolds 008.jpg|John Hayes St. Leger

File:Joshua Reynolds - Lady Frances Finch - Google Art Project.jpg|Lady Frances Finch, Countess of Dartmouth (c.1781-1782)

File:William (Thomas) Beckford.jpg|Portrait of William Beckford, (1782)

File:John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, by Joshua Reynolds.jpg|Portrait of the Earl of Bute (1773)

File:Sir Joshua Renyolds - Richard Peers Symons, M.P. (Later Sr Richard Peers Symons, Baronet) - Google Art Project.jpg|Sir Richard Peers Symons, Baronet (1770-1771)

File:Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) - Sir Charles Davers (1737–1806), 6th Bt, MP - 851781 - National Trust.jpg|Sir Charles Davers, 6th Bt (1773)

File:Joshua Reynolds - Mrs John Hale.jpg|Mrs John Hale (1762-1764)

File:Theodosia Meade, Countess of Clanwilliam (Miss Hawkins-Magill) by Joshua Reynolds (colour), 50 x 40 inches.jpg|Theodosia Meade, Countess of Clanwilliam (Miss Hawkins-Magill)

</gallery>

References

Referenced books

James Boswell, Life of Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
Charles Robert Leslie and Tom Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds (London: John Murray, 1865, 2 volumes).
Ian McIntyre, Joshua Reynolds: The Life and Times of the First President of the Royal Academy (London: Allen Lane, 2003).
Martin Postle, "Reynolds, Sir Joshua (1723–1792)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, October 2009. Retrieved 24 September 2010.

External links

List of paintings by or after Reynolds in Wikidata
Port Eliot House, home of the Earl of St. Germans contains many fine works by Reynolds, including a rare view of Plymouth
'Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Acquisition of Genius' exhibition at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery - 21 November 2009 to 20 February 2010
Frits Lugt, Les marques de collections de dessins & d'estampes, 1921 and its Supplement 1956, online edition
Sir Joshua Reynolds at Waddesdon Manor
, engraved by Ambrose William Warren for The Easter Gift, 1832, with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Collections

The National Gallery: Sir Joshua Reynolds
Works in the National Galleries of Scotland
Liverpoolmuseums.org.uk
GAC.culture.gov.uk
Artcyclopedia: Sir Joshua Reynolds
National Portrait Gallery Collection
Sir Joshua Reynolds at Olga's Gallery
Sir Joshua Reynolds, A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings (book-bound)