It has been suggested by Dr Martin Postle that this beautiful sitter may be a member of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ family, as yet unidentified, and the work dateable to c.1755-60. It has further been added by Richard Alymer that the sitter may be Sir Joshua's sister, Elizabeth Johnson, née Reynolds (b. 1721). The comparative image illustrates a print taken from an untraced portrait of Elizabeth by Sir Joshua; Manning's cat. no. 1018, fig. 305.
The relatively finished head contrasted with the unfinished drapery and background, gives a fascinating insight into Reynolds’ working technique. By the 1740s Reynolds preferred to paint directly on to the canvas with no preliminary drawing, a methodology he applied throughout his career. When completing portraits, Reynolds tended to work on the head with the sitter present, whilst the costume and other details were completed later, often using a professional ‘drapery painter’ or one of his assistants. However, alterations show that Reynolds worked over these areas correcting outlines and enhancing particular details. The free handling of the paint and relaxed, frontal pose of the sitter creates a sense of youthfulness, whilst remaining dignified in composition.
Reynolds was the foremost portrait painter in eighteenth century England, his works greatly influencing the following generation of painters that included Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) and Henry Raeburn (1756-1823). He was a proponent of the ‘Grand Style’ of painting; his poses often inspired by classical sculpture or the Old Masters as he looked to enhance the dignity and classical virtue of his sitters.
Born in Devon in 1723, he received a classical education from his father The Reverend Samuel Reynolds, headmaster of Plympton Grammar School. His father had intended him to become an apothecary; however Reynolds’ desire to train as an artist led him, in 1740, to spend four years apprenticed to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson (1701-79). He spent 1749 to 1752 in Italy studying the Old Masters and developing his taste for the ‘Grand Style’; inspired by the works of Michelangelo, Guilio Romano, Tintoretto and Correggio amongst others.
He returned to London in 1752 and set up his studio, first at 104 St. Martin’s Lane, then at 5 Great Newport Street. 1758 was evidently a peak year for his portraits, as his pocket book records sittings every day of the week. Reynolds, a keen intellectual, socialised with a great number of London’s intelligentsia, including the author Dr Samuel Johnson, Whig statesman Edward Burke and fellow artist Angelica Kauffman. As well as receiving royal and frequent aristocratic commissions, Reynolds’ rise to fame was also largely associated with the patronage of those whose fortunes were made though trade or on the stock exchange, for example the portraits of Mr and Mrs Beckford, (1755-6, Tate Collection, London). His great popularity is evident in the remarkable inflation of his prices; for example the cost of a whole-length portrait rose from 48 guineas in the early 1750s to 200 guineas by the 1780s.
Reynolds was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society of Arts, and alongside his contemporary and rival Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) he helped to form the Royal Academy of Art in 1768, serving as the first President until his death. In 1789 he was forced into retirement having lost the sight of his left eye, and died in 1792 in his house in Leicester Fields.
We are grateful to Dr Martin Postle for dating the work from circa 1755-60, and for suggesting that the sitter may be a member of the artist’s family, as yet unidentified.
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