Monday, August 22, 2016

Portraits of the English by Joshua Reynolds

Sir Joshua Reynolds
Self-portrait
ca. 1747-49
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)

Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) was by far the busiest and best respected portrait painter in 18th-century England. He convincingly updated the grand manner of Italian Renaissance portraiture. Yet there are problems, according to curators at the National Gallery in London  "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 black has tended to crack."  (The connoisseur's irritation is audible in those words  should not the President of the Royal Academy have known better?)

Sir Joshua Reynolds
Anne Dashwood as Shepherdess
1764
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sir Joshua Reynolds
Colonel Banastre Tarleton
1782
National Gallery (U.K.)

Sir Joshua Reynolds
David Garrick & Eva Maria Garrick
1772-73
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)

Sir Joshua Reynolds
Anne, 2nd Countess of Albemarle
ca. 1760
National Gallery (U.K.)

Sir Joshua Reynolds
Charles Watson Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, Prime Minister 
ca. 1768
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)

Sir Joshua Reynolds
Horace Walpole, author
1756-57
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)

Sir Joshua Reynolds
Mrs. Fitzherbert, wife of the future George IV
ca. 1788
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)

Sir Joshua Reynolds
The Honorable Henry Fane with Inigo Jones and Charles Blair
1761-66
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sir Joshua Reynolds
Laurence Sterne, author
ca. 1760
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)

Sir Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joseph Banks, naturalist
1771-73
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)

Sir Joshua Reynolds
Warren Hastings, Governor-General of India
1766-68
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


Sir Joshua Reynolds
Lady Cockburn with her three eldest sons
1773
National Gallery (U.K.)


Sir Joshua Reynolds
William Beckford, author
1782
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)