Footnotes

Provenance
Dr John Mudge (1721-1793) and by descent to the sitter's sister
Elizabeth Fletcher and thence by descent to her daughter
Harriet, wife of Rev. W Darwin Fox, and thence by descent to his nephew
Rev. F. A. Overton and thence by descent to the present owners

Exhibited
Birmingham, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Exhibition of works by Sir Joshua Reynolds P.R.A., 1723-1792, 18 February – 19 March, 1961, no. 26
Plymouth, Plymouth City Art Gallery, Sir Joshua Reynolds 250th anniversary exhibition, 16 July-27 August 1973, no. 35

Literature
J. Northcote, Supplement to the Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds, London, 1815, p. 34
W. Cotton, Sir Joshua Reynolds and his works: gleanings from his diary, unpublished manuscripts and from other sources, London, 1856, p. 82-3
C. R. Leslie, Life and times of Sir Joshua Reynolds : with notices of some of his contemporaries, London, 1865, vol. I, p. 148
S. R. Flint, Mudge Memoirs: being a record of Zachariah Mudge, and some members of his family; together with a genealogical list of the same. Compiled from family papers & other sources. Illustrated with portraits, Truro, 1883, pp.117-18, ill. p. 116
Graves and Cronin, A history of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. London, 1901, vol. II, p. 678
Exhibition of works by Sir Joshua Reynolds P.R.A., 1723-1792, exh. cat., Birmingham, 1961, p. 21, cat. no. 26, ills. on cover
Plymouth City Art Gallery, Sir Joshua Reynolds 250th anniversary exhibition, Plymouth, 1973, exh. cat., cat. no. 35
D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, London, 2000, p. 346, cat. no. 1309, ill. fig. 353

Engraved
S. W. Reynolds, 1822

The eldest son of Dr John Mudge, a Fellow of the Royal Society and a friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds's, the young John Mudge is recorded as having sat for the artist for numerous appointments in February, July and August of 1758.

Leslie recounts in his biography of Reynolds that the young John Mudge, who was at the navy college in London, wanted to visit his father in Plymouth for his sixteenth birthday. However, he was confined to his room in London due to illness. When the boy expressed his disappointment to Reynolds, the artist then offered to paint him so that he could 'send him to his father' who would be agreeably surprised by seeing his son peeping out at him from behind a curtain.

However, Mannings believes that this account, often repeated in the literature, is not consistent with Reynolds's Pocket Book. In his Supplement to the Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Northcote describes this portrait as 'exquisitely painted and is one of his finest productions' (see Literature).