British 1723-1792 Sir Joshua Reynolds Locations Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723. As one of eleven children, and the son of the village school-master, Reynolds was restricted to a formal education provided by his father. He exhibited a natural curiosity and, as a boy, came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. Showing an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Hudson, with whom he remained until 1743. From 1749 to 1752, he spent over two years in Italy, where he studied the Old Masters and acquired a taste for the "Grand Style". Unfortunately, whilst in Rome, Reynolds suffered a severe cold which left him partially deaf and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. From 1753 until the end of his life he lived in London, his talents gaining recognition soon after his arrival in France. Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday. He was both gregarious and keenly intellectual, with a great number of friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered amongst whom were Dr Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Giuseppe Baretti, Henry Thrale, David Garrick and fellow artist Angelica Kauffmann. Because of his popularity as a portrait painter, Reynolds enjoyed constant interaction with the wealthy and famous men and women of the day, and it was he who first brought together the famous figures of "The" Club. With his rival Thomas Gainsborough, Reynolds was the dominant English portraitist of 'the Age of Johnson'. It is said that in his long life he painted as many as three thousand portraits. In 1789 he lost the sight of his left eye, which finally forced him into retirement. In 1791 James Boswell dedicated his Life of Samuel Johnson to Reynolds. Reynolds died on 23 February 1792 in his house in Leicester Fields, London. He is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.  Related Paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds :. | mrs john spencer and her daughter | Portrait of Lady Cockburn and her three oldest sons | The Age of Innocence | Self-Portrait | Portrait of Frederick William Ernest |
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Augustus e.mulready
fl.1863-1886
Caspar van Wittel
(born Caspar Adriaensz. van Wittel, later a.k.a. Gaspare Vanvitelli, Gasparo degli Occhiali) (1653 - September 13, 1736) was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter. Van Wittel was born in Amersfoort. He learned painting first from Thomas Jansz van Veenendaal for 4 or 5 years and then from Matthias Withoos for 7 years, until Withoos left Amersfoort. In Amersfoort, he likely was exposed to Dutch landscape artists such as Jan van der Heyden and Gerrit Berckheyde. His first extant works were made in Hoorn in 1672, but he relocated to Rome with his family ca. 1675 and made his career there. Like his former teacher, he joined the Bentvueghels with the nickname "Piktoors" or "Toorts van Amersfoort"(torch of Amersfort). He married in Rome in 1697, and stayed most of his life in that city, though, between 1694 and 1710, he toured Italy and painted in places like Florence, Bologna, Ferrara, Venice, Milan, Piacenza and Naples. He is one of the principal painters of topographical views known as vedute. Gaspar van Wittel died in Rome. His son Luigi would become a famous architect and also carries the italianized family name of Vanvitelli. In Luigi's biography is written that his father was born in July 1656, but Van Wittel's grave in Rome states that he died at the age of 83 in 1736.
Marco Palmezzano
Italian Painter and Architect , ca.1460-1539