A Welsh fop

FRANCIS COTES (1726-1770) Richard Myddleton MP (c. 1760=65) Oil on canvas (127 x 101 cm) National Museum of Wales   Richard Myddelton (1726-1795) could well be considered the quintessential MP, as he did not do anything at all, mind you MPs in those days were not paid the obscene amounts of money their counterparts get …

The Earl of Chesterfield

WILLIAM HOARE RA (1707-1792) Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Pastel on paper (66.7 x 48.6 cm) Location unknown   William Hoare is the kind of artist that deserves to be better known. Unfortunately, for him, he was the contemporary of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough and Allan Ramsay. In spite of that, he enjoyed …

A dashing Guards officer

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS (1723-1792) Captain George K. H. Coussmaker (1782) Oil on canvas (238 x 145 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Painted in 1782, this is one of Reynolds' finest works. He devoted an exceptionally large number of sittings to this portrait; he had twenty-one appointments with the young Coussmaker between February 9 …

A triple portrait

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS (1723-1792) The Honourable Henry Fane with Inigo Jones and Charles Blair (1763) Oil on canvas (254 x 360 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Joshua was the seventh child of Samuel Reynolds, a schoolmaster, and his wife, Teophila Potter. He would have received a sound classical education under his father who …

A handsome gentleman

SIR PETER LELY (1618-1680) Sir Henry Capel Oil on canvas (126 x 103 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The artist was the son of a captain of infantry in the service of the Elector of Brandenburg. Born Pieter van der Faes, he adopted the pseudonym Lely. He arrived in England in the …

A classical landscape

JOHN WOOTTON (1682-1764) A classical landscape with gypsies (1748) Oil on canvas (140 x 130 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Born in Snitterfield (Warwickshire) circa 1682, John Wootton is best remembered as a pioneer in the painting of sporting subjects and was considered as the finest practitioner of the genre in his day. …

A Georgian Beauty

GEORGE ROMNEY (1734-1802) Lady Elizabeth Stanley, Countess of Derby (1778) Oil on canvas (127 x 102 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Romney received little formal education, having left school at an early age to train with his father, a skilled cabinetmaker. In 1755 he was indentured for two years to an itinerant …

The arrogant admiral

FRANCIS  COTES (1726-1770)   Admiral Harry Paulet, Sixth Duke of Bolton (1765) Oil on canvas (127 x 102 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The son of a prominent apothecary and the older brother of Samuel Cotes, the miniaturist, Francis Cotes was born in the Strand on May 20, 1726. According to Horace Walpole, …

A Morbid Sitter

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS (1723-1792) George Augustus Selwyn (c.1764-66) Oil on canvas (99 x 76 cm) The Earl of Rosebery, Dalmeny House, nr Edinburgh Apart from being an example of Reynolds' artistic virtuosity, this portrait is fascinating because it represents a distraught individual whose face does not reveal his morbid character. George Augustus Selwyn (1719-91), the …

The Countess

 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS (1723-1792) Anne, 2nd Countess Albemarle (c. 1759) Oil on canvas (126 x 101 cm) The National Gallery, London Although some colour has fled from the face in this portrait as is usual with Reynold's work of this period, the shadows there retain their transparency; the lights painted in the patterned black mantle …