Studio: international art (10.1897)

Portraits of British Artists

unbroken from Riley to Reynolds. A good honest
old fellow was Richardson, thoroughly British, an
exponent of the Bible and of Milton, and it is to be
feared on this account occasionally an undoubted
bore to Pope and other friends with whom he was
wont to associate at the coffee houses. Both
Richardson and his son of the same name were ad-
dicted to portraying themselves, and the portrait of
the father by himself is a good example of his skill.

Next in order of date comes the famous little
portrait of William Hogarth, seated in his studio
and painting The Comic Muse. This charming
little picture was sold by Hogarth to Lord
Camden, and was purchased for the Portrait
Gallery in 1869. Small as it is, it is almost perfect
as a work of art, and has all the elements of a
larger portrait about it. The light is beautifully
managed, and the whole texture and handling is
worthy of one of the best Dutch artists. A tribute
to its merit has been paid by the eminent American
wood engraver, Mr. Timothy Cole, who, on com-
mencing a series of " masterpieces of British art"
for The Century magazine, selected this portrait as
the most admirable ..specimen of British art which
he could find.

In the same room with the portrait of Hogarth
hangs a humorous picture representing Francis
Hayman, the jovial royal academician, showing off
one of his paintings to the Prime Minister, Sir
Robert Walpole. In this group Hayman has
illustrated well the eager look of himself as artist
and vendor and the genial dilettantism of the dis-
tinguished statesman.

The portraits hitherto mentioned find their
places in the chronological sequence of portraits
on the top floor of the new Gallery. On the first
floor it has been found possible to group together
the portraits of artists, Gallery XVII. being wholly,
and Galleries XIX. and XXI. partially, given up to
them. Gallery XVII. may be said to be the Floren-
tine Gallery in miniature, and contains autograph
portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Romney, Gains-
borough, Joseph Wright of Derby, James Barry,
Sir William Beechey, Opie, Angelica Kauffmann,
John Jackson, John Raphael Smith, Zoffany,
Nathaniel Hone, Northcote, George Morland, and
Mortimer.

First and foremost comes the well-known por-
trait of the youthful Joshua Reynolds, shading his
eyes from the light, as he looks up towards it from
his easel. This portrait, once in the possession of
Mr. Lane, of Coffleet, is supposed to have been
painted soon after his return to Devonshire in
1746. It is difficult to place it at a later date in
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his life, yet the mouth shows a peculiarity in the
form of the upper lip,'which was due to an acci-
dent with which the painter met at Minorca in
1749, and which is very evident in all his later
portraits. This peculiarity is not apparent in the
small portrait of Reynolds presented to the Gal-
lery by Lord Ronald Gower, which, even if it is
not painted by Reynolds himself, is an attractive
likeness of the painter in early youth.

Although the name of Sir Joshua Reynolds is
inseparably connected with the Royal Academy,
it is well known that he had a quarrel with that
body, which ended in his temporary resignation of
the presidency. It is curious that the painters
whose autograph portraits hang in immediate
vicinity to those of Reynolds in this Gallery, all
found themselves, at some period of their career, in
antagonism to the Royal Academy. On one side
hangs the portrait of James Barry, whose strange
misdirected genius and impulsive nature finally led
to his actual expulsion from the ranks of the acade-
micians ; on the other that of Joseph Wright,
(Wright of Derby), who was an associate for three
years, but on being elected an academician in
1784 declined the proffered honour and withdrew
altogether from the Academy. This refusal on the
part of Wright seems to have been due to the bad
hanging of his pictures in the Exhibition, and his
annoyance at an artist whom he considered inferior
to him, being preferred to him on a previous occa-
sion. The portraits of both these painters, how-
ever, are successful tributes to their skill in their
art. Barry, clad in a dark red-brown coat, turns to
look round at the spectator away from his easel
and a cast of the Vatican torso, by which two
fellow students of his, Paine, the architect, and
Lefevre, a Frenchman, are standing. Wright, clad
in a remarkable coat of rather yellowish green,
turns round also to look at the spectator, while he
rests his left arm on a portfolio. Wright's portrait
is a masterly study of light, in the reflections and
cross-reflections of which he took a special delight.
Both portraits showr the painters in the prime of their
youth, and, curiously enough, both painters have very
similar pale-brown eyes. Near the portrait of Rey-
nolds also hangs a small portrait of Gainsborough,
not much larger than a good-sized miniature, very
carefully and elegantly painted, and probably the
small portrait mentioned by Fulcher as in the pos-
session of William Clarke. It was acquired at
Bath for Lord Ronald Gower, who presented it to
the Gallery. In the later portrait of Gainsborough,
which is in the possession of the Royal Academy,
the same features can be traced.