Jonathan Richardson (1665-1745), Portrait painter

Sitter associated with 8 portraits
Artist associated with 120 portraits
One of the most successful native-born portraitists of the first decades of the eighteenth century, Richardson was the master of Thomas Hudson and George Knapton. He owned a superb collection of Old Master drawings. His Theory of Painting published in 1715, inspired the young Joshua Reynolds to become an artist. Richardson was exceptionally fond of drawing portraits of himself and his close friends; Horace Walpole later commented that 'after his retirement form the 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'.