REYNOLDS, Sir JOSHUA (1723-1792, portrait painter, first President of the Royal Academy) PORTRAIT A
209
REYNOLDS, Sir JOSHUA (1723-1792, portrait painter, first President of the Royal Academy)
PORTRAIT AFTER HIS CELEBRATED SELF-PORTRAIT AGED ABOUT SIXTY-FIVE, ENGLISH SCHOOL, 19TH CENTURY
oil on canvas, half-length, 291/2 x 241/2 in 74.9 x 62.3 cm).
Estimate:
£4,000 - 5,000
US$ 6,100 - 7,600
€4,700 - 5,900

Footnotes

  • EXHIBITED: Burlington House, 1906.

    PROVENANCE: Rev. W.H. Wayne, 1906; G. Farrow of Elmsgrove, Kingston-on-Thames by 1922.

    REFERENCES: David Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA: The Self-Portraits, 1992; conversation with David Mannings; David Mannings, Joshua Reynolds: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, 2000; Reynolds, edited by Nicholas Penny, Royal Academy of Arts, 1986; Richard Wendorf, Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Painter in Society, National Portrait Gallery, 1996; Ellis Waterhouse, Reynolds, 1941.

    'An extremely good early copy' in the opinion of Dr. David Mannings, curator of the Reynolds Self-Portraits exhibition at Plymouth City Museums and Art Gallery in 1992 and author of the complete catalogue of Reynolds's works.

    It is remarkable for the quality of the painting and for its original unrestored condition. Relatively few early nineteenth-century pictures have escaped the not always sympathetic attentions of restorers. The present painting has never been lined and the impasto has not been flattened.

    Not having been relined, it is possible, unlike many of the surviving examples of this portrait, to date it with some accuracy. On the back of the canvas is the trade stamp of the artists' oil and colourman, John Sherborn with the address 321 Oxford Street. Sherborn traded from this address under his own name between 1820 and 1848. From 1817 to 1819 the premises were occupied for the same purpose by Thomas Hope and from 1848 Sherborn traded with a partner under the joint names of Sherborn & Tillyer.

    Reynolds's friend and first biographer Edmond Malone described the self-portrait, painted about 1778, as 'extremely like him' and notes that it represented him 'exactly as he appeared in his latter days, in domestick life.' Lady Thomond (when Reynold's niece Polly presented the prime version to the Prince Regent in 1812) thought it 'the best portrait he ever painted of himself' and Boswell considered it 'the best representation of my celebrated friend.' Of some twenty self-portraits of Reynolds, this is the only one which shows him wearing spectacles.

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