Joshua Reynolds

Sir Joshua Reynolds, born 16 July 1723 and died 23 February 1792, was an English portrait specialist. According to art critic John Russell, he ranks among the major European painters of the 1700s, and Lucy Peltz described him as the leading portraitist of that century and possibly one of the greatest artists in art history. He championed the "Grand Style," which involved idealising imperfect subjects. Reynolds co-founded the Royal Academy of Arts and served as its first president; King George III knighted him in 1769. He is often called the master who transformed British art. His studio was famously productive, turning out over 2,000 paintings in his lifetime. Ellis Waterhouse estimated that Reynolds himself considered worthy fewer than a hundred works worth examining for their success, originality, or influence. Among these, *Portrait of Omai* is probably his most famous piece; Simon Schama called it one of the greatest things British art has ever produced and a timeless masterpiece. Waterhouse deemed *The Marlborough Family* the most monumental achievement in British portraiture, adding that Reynolds’ genius fully emerged in the variety and warmth he brought to full-length portraits such as those of Philip Gell and the Earl of Carlisle. Thomas Lawrence rated *Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse* the finest female portrait in the world. Neil Jeffares noted that *Portrait of Robert Orme* stands as one of the great European portraits of the 1700s. In 2023, *Portrait of Omai* sold for £50 million, far exceeding any previous price for an 18th-century picture. Two years later, the full-length *Portrait of Lady Worsley* went for £25 million, and in the same year, the National Trust acquired *Portrait of Mrs. Lloyd* through acceptance in lieu of tax, with an agreed value of £17.5 million—though its open-market price would have been substantially higher. Jonathan Jones remarked that these sums place Reynolds in the superstar category, alongside contemporaries like Damien Hirst and Lucian Freud, and described him not as remote or staid but as the portraitist of the Enlightenment, a daring artist who captured a daring age. **Early life**

Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723, the third son of Reverend Samuel Reynolds, headmaster of the Plympton Free Grammar School. His father had been a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, but did not send any of his sons to university. One of his sisters, Mary Palmer, seven years his senior, wrote *Devonshire Dialogue*; her fondness for drawing reportedly influenced Joshua as a boy. In 1740 she contributed £60—half the premium—for his apprenticeship to portrait painter Thomas Hudson, and nine years later she advanced money for his Italian travels. His other siblings included Frances Reynolds and Elizabeth Johnson. As a child, he was also influenced by Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him throughout his life. Reynolds filled his commonplace book with extracts from Theophrastus, Plutarch, Seneca, Marcus Antonius, Ovid, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Dryden, Addison, Steele, and Aphra Behn, and copied passages on art theory from Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy, and André Félibien. The work that most influenced him was Jonathan Richardson’s *An Essay on the Theory of Painting* (1715). Reynolds’ annotated copy, inscribed “J. Reynolds Pictor,” was lost for nearly two centuries before turning up in a Cambridge bookshop; it now resides in the Royal Academy of Arts collection. **Career**

Reynolds showed an early interest in art and in 1740 was apprenticed to Thomas Hudson, a fashionable London portrait painter also born in Devon. Hudson owned Old Master drawings, including some by Guercino, which Reynolds copied. Though the apprenticeship was meant to last four years, Reynolds left after only until summer 1743. He then worked for a time as a portrait painter in Plymouth Dock (now Devonport), returning to London before the end of 1744. After his father’s death in late 1745, he shared a house in Plymouth Dock with his sisters. In 1749 he met Commodore Augustus Keppel, who invited him aboard HMS *Centurion* for a Mediterranean voyage. During the trip he visited Lisbon, Cádiz, Algiers, and Minorca. From Minorca he travelled to Livorno, Italy, and then to Rome, where he spent two years studying the Old Masters and developing a taste for the “Grand Style.” Lord Edgcumbe, who had known Reynolds as a boy and introduced him to Keppel, suggested he study with Pompeo Batoni, Rome’s leading painter, but Reynolds replied he had nothing to learn from him. While in Rome, a severe cold left him partially deaf, leading him to carry the small ear trumpet often seen in his portraits. He returned home overland through Florence, Bologna, Venice, and Paris, accompanied by Giuseppe Marchi, then about 17. Apart from a brief break in 1770, Marchi worked as Reynolds’ studio assistant for the rest of the artist’s career. After arriving in England in October 1752, Reynolds spent three months in Devon before settling in London the following year, where he remained for the rest of his life.