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 :. | Portrait of Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, later Lord Hood | Self-Portrait | Portrait of Lady Cockburn and her three oldest sons | Anne,Second Countess of Albemarle | Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces |
Related Artists:
TORRENTIUS, Johannes
Dutch painter (b. 1589, Amsterdam, d. 1644, Amsterdam). Dutch painter. He was active in Amsterdam, Leiden and Haarlem. In Haarlem in 1627 he was condemned, after severe torture, to 20 years of imprisonment for impiety, blasphemy and his membership of the outlawed Society of Rosicrucians. After having been notified by Sir Dudley Carleton, the British ambassador in The Hague, Charles I of England intervened and brought about Torrentius's release in 1629. Torrentius was subsequently active from 1629 to 1632 in London, which he nevertheless had to leave, again on account of his purportedly immoral mode of life; he returned to Amsterdam. There he was again involved in a trial and died after suffering torture in 1644. His erotic pictures, some of which depicted masterful nudes in mythological settings and are now known only through literary sources, were publicly burnt. A few still-lifes (e.g. Emblematic Still-life, 1614; Amsterdam, Rijksmus.) have survived. These carefully composed works, mostly set before a dark background, recall the work of Jan van de Velde II and the circle of Willem Claesz. Heda.
Jean-Pierre-Alexandre Antigna
painted The Fire in 1850-51
Osias Beert
1580-1624 Flemish Osias Beert Galleries Flemish painter. In 1596 he went to study with Andries van Baseroo and in 1602 became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke; these two dates suggest his probable date of birth. Beert married Marguerite Ykens on 8 January 1606. Contemporary documents describe him as a cork merchant. The esteem enjoyed by Beert is indicated by the large number of pupils he had, including, in 1610, Frans van der Borch; in 1615, Frans Ykens; in 1616, Paulus Pontius; and, in 1618, Jan Willemssen. Beerts son, Osias Beert the younger (1622-78), was also a painter and became a master in 1645.