Early 18th Century "Portrait of a Gentleman" Oil Painting by Jonathan Richardson, Framed

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Portrait of a gentleman (with a gilt frame. Frame: 32" x 36" site: 25" x 30" Jonathan Richardson (London 12 … Read more Portrait of a gentleman (with a gilt frame. Frame: 32" x 36" site: 25" x 30" Jonathan Richardson (London 12 January 1667 – 28 May 1745 London) sometimes called "the Elder" to distinguish him from his son (Jonathan Richardson the Younger) was an English artist, collector of drawings, and writer on art, working almost entirely as a portrait-painter in London. He was considered by some art critics as one of the three foremost painters of his time. He was the master of Thomas Hudson and George Knapton. Richardson was even more influential as a writer; he is credited with inspiring Joshua Reynolds to paint and theorise with his book An Essay on the Theory of Painting. This book is credited with being "the first significant work of artistic theory in English." One of the most successful English portraitists of the early 18th Century, Richardson captured his sitter's likeness and form using an austere palette. Throughout his career he executed portraits of many distinguished gentlemen of the period including Sir Hans Sloane (founder of the British Museum, and Alexander Pope (the poet. Richardson was, however, not only celebrated as a portraitist but also as an outstanding collector of drawings, and a prolific writer on art and connoisseurship. His Essay on the Theory of Painting was published in 1715, and in 1722 he published with his son An Account of the Statues and Bas-reliefs, Drawings and Pictures in Italy, with Remarks, which became an essential handbook for anyone on the Grand Tour, and is believed to have inspired Sir Joshua Reynolds to raise the standard of painting in Britain by close reference to classical sources. At the sale of the younger Richardson's own remarkable drawings in February 1772, Horace Walpole commented on 'hundreds of portraits of both [father and son] in chalks by the father, with the dates when executed; for after his retirement from business the good old man seems to have amused himself with writing a short poem and drawing his own or his son's portrait every day' (H. Walpole, Anecdotes, IV, 1827, p. 29, in M. Rogers, Master Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery, London, 1993. See less