Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), Painter and first President of the Royal Academy

Self Portraits
Before the comprehensive listing by David Mannings (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000), the self portraits had been generally surveyed in E. Malone ed., The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1797, I, pp XLV-XLVII., by J. Steegman, Burl. Mag, LXXX, 1942, pp 31-34, and by David Mannings in his exhibition catalogue Reynolds: The Self Portraits, Plymouth, 1992.

c.1740
Drawing, bust length. Sotheby's, 6 June 2003, lot 1 (illus. D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Self Portraits, exhibition catalogues, Sudbury, Plymouth, 1992, no.1).

c.1746
Painting, bust length. Private collection (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.1). Given by the artist to his niece, Mary Palmer, later Marchioness of Thomond.

c.1747-48
Painting, see NPG 41.

1750
Drawing, bust length. British Museum (1897.6.15.1; illus. D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Self Portraits, exhibition catalogues, Sudbury, Plymouth, 1992, no.5).

c.1750
Painting, half length. Yale Center for British Art, ex-Christie’s, 12 June 2002, lot 31, from the Strutt collection.

1751
Painting, Parody of the School of Athens, caricature group in which the artist is believed to appear on the extreme right (but this figure has also been recognized as Thomas Patch). National Gallery of Ireland (734; D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.1962). Painted in Rome.

c.1751-52
Painting, half length, with broad-brimmed hat. Private collection (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.3). Probably painted in Rome.

c.1753-55
Painting, half length. Tate Gallery (N889; D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I,2000, no.4). Northcote thought this the most like of all the self portraits (M. Davies, National Gallery Catalogues, 1946, p 122).

c.1756
Painting, half length, in red robe with black fur collar. Sold Christie's 24 November 1998, lot 40, from Panshanger (Mannings 2000, no.5). A version in a private collection was given by the Marchioness of Thomond to Sir George Baker (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.6).

c.1764-67
Painting, half length in dull yellow cape. Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery, Cottonian Collection (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.7). Painted for the artist’s nephew, Dean Joseph Palmer.

c.1765-70
Painting, seated at his easel. Sold Phillips, 10 July 1990, lot 49 (illus. C. White ed., Rembrandt in England in the 18th century, 1983, pl.30). The head possibly by Reynolds. Farington owned a Reynolds self portrait 'as a painter, with a canvass, easel &c before him' (E. Malone ed., The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1797, I, p XLV), and on 25 March 1801 his 'portrait of Sir Joshua' was to be cleaned and relined by Marchi (Joseph Farington, Diary).

c.1766
Painting, half length. Society of Dilettanti, London (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.8). Reynolds was elected to the Society in 1766. Copies in Auckland Art Gallery attributed to James Northcote, and sold Phillips, 3 May 1988, lot 46.

Two other self-portraits in private collections closely resemble this pattern; one bought by Lord Normanton at the Thomond sale, Christie’s, 18 May 1821, lot 23, engraved by J. Watson 1770 (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.9), the other, a reduced version without the book, at Woburn Abbey (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.10).

1773
Painting, half length to left in DCL robes. Private collection (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.11). Painted as a gift to the Corporation of Plympton on the artist’s election as mayor of Plympton, allegedly ‘begun & finish’d in the same day’. Version sold Sotheby's, 27 June 1973, lot 77.
A reduced version sold Christie's 21 November 1986, lot 100, and of several copies, two attributed to Northcote, one listed at Chesterfield House in 1893 (NPG archives), the other sold Sotheby's, 10 April 1991, lot 137.

c.1773-74
Painting, half length to right in DCL robes. Althorp (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.12). Versions include those sold Christie's, 15 April 1994, lot 16a; Christie's, 18 July 1924, lot 127 (from Lord Leverhulme’s collection); Christie's, 17 April 1964, lot 131, and another is at Newnham House (see D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.13a-c).

Miniature copies by Andrew Robertson in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (illus. G. Reynolds, European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996, no.163), by James Nixon in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (illus. R. Bayne-Powell, Catalogue of Portrait miniatures in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1985, p 160), and by George Engleheart (illus. G. C. Williamson & H. L. D. Engleheart, George Engleheart, 1902, f.p.52). The image was also adapted by Reynolds for the self portrait as a shepherd in the Adoration scene in the window he designed for New College, Oxford.

1775
Painting, half length to right in DCL robes and cap, a scroll in his right hand. Uffizi Gallery, Florence (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.16). Commissioned by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Replica in a private collection (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.17). Versions with the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, N. Y.; formerly at Wynnstay, and sold Sotheby's, 17 May 1989, lot 229 (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, nos.16a-c). A copy by James Northcote is in the Government Art Collection (GAC 1973) and a chalk copy was made by him in Florence (illus. Gwynn 1898, f.p.210); a reduced copy by John Powell sold Christie's, 10 April 1992, lot 104, and a miniature copy by Giuseppe Macpherson is in the Royal Collection (R. J. B. Walker, The eighteenth and early nineteenth century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1992, no.661).
There appear to be two preliminary versions of this composition; formerly at Apethorpe (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.14), including an open paper in his right hand, engraved by J. K. Sherwin 1784; and in the Tate Gallery (N 306; D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.15), his left hand at his breast.

c.1775-80
Painting, three-quarter length seated in DCL robes, holding a paper addressed to the President and Council of the Royal Academy; a bust of Michelangelo behind him. Destroyed by fire 1898 (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.19). From the Thomond sale, 19 May 1821, lot 44. Engraved G. H. Every 1866.

c.1775
Painting, half length, his left hand at his ear. Tate Gallery (N 4505; D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.18). Painted for Henry Thrale's library at Streatham Park. A copy in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo N. Y., and another by the artist’s niece, Mary Palmer (later Marchioness of Thomond), sold Sotheby's, 8 February 1956, lot 116.

c.1780
Painting, three-quarter length in DCL robes and cap, with a bust of Michelangelo. Royal Academy, London (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.21). Engraved V. Green 1780. A replica at Belvoir Castle destroyed by fire 1816. Half-length versions sold Phillips, 6 June 1989, lot 35 (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.20), and at Port Eliot. Of numerous copies, one is in the National Museum, Havana, another (half-length) by R. A. Clack in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, and a pencil copy of the head by B. R. Haydon was sold Sotheby's, 3 October 1968, lot 192. A miniature copy by W. H. Craft is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (illus. R. J. B. Walker, Miniatures, a selection of miniatures in the Ashmolean Museum, 1997, no.87); an enamel copy by Henry Bone in the Royal Collection (dated 1804; R. J. B. Walker, The eighteenth and early nineteenth century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1992, no.783) was copied by Sarah Barett Malden (Louvre).

c.1783
Drawing bust length, expressive of terror. Tate Gallery (N 1834; illus. D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Self Portraits, exhibition catalogue, Sudbury, Plymouth, 1992, no.21). A study for Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse (Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.).

c.1785?
Painting, half length. Marshall collection sale, Bonham’s, 28 March 1974, lot 110. Exhibited: RA 1906 (86, as a Self portrait). The head appears to have been a self portrait, but the picture is now in poor condition and an attribution difficult.

c.1788
Painting, half length, wearing spectacles. Royal Collection (Sir Oliver Millar, The Later Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, I, 1969, no.1008; Gainsborough & Reynolds 1994, no.66; D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.22). Engraved C. Watson 1789.
Copies of this portrait abound. Good contemporary versions include two in private collections, one sent by Reynolds to the Duke of Leeds in 1790 (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.23), the other made for William Mason; a copy made for Edmund Burke is in the Royal Collection (Sir Oliver Millar, The Later Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, I, 1969, no.1032) and another for Edmond Malone at Kenwood (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, nos.25, 24). Versions are in the Dulwich Picture Gallery (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.26), Apsley House and Petworth (cat. 1920, p 108, no.308).
Copies include examples in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (333), the Toledo Museum of Art, and at Chequers. Named copyists include John Jackson (Holburne Museum, Bath), John Rising (Lord Brownlow’s collection), G. P. A. Healy 1845 (Versailles), Rev George Huddesford (illus. Country Life, CIV, 1948, p 1270), and Lady Anne Fitzpatrick (pastel formerly at Holland House; cat., 1904, no.180).
Miniature copies by Henry Bone are in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, the Royal Collection (dated 1809; R. J. B. Walker, The eighteenth and early nineteenth century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1992, no.784); preparatory drawings dated 1804 in the NPG Bone albums (R. Walker, 'Henry Bone's Pencil Drawings in the National Portrait Gallery', Wal. Soc., LXI, 1999, nos.427-28), and sold Sotheby's, 4 July 1989, lot 346 (dated 1792). Another by H. P. Bone dated 1851 is in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight (a duplicate in the Leverhulme sale, Anderson Galleries, New York, 2-4 March 1926, lot 17). Miniature copies by William Grimaldi include: Sotheby's, 26 March 1979, lot 69 (dated 1791); the Royal Collection (dated 1792; R. J. B. Walker, The eighteenth and early nineteenth century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1992, no.822); Christie's, 9 November 1994, lot 28 (dated 1809), and Christie's, 23 May 1989, lot 121 (dated 1811). An unattributed miniature copy is in the Scottish NPG (PG 2323).

c.1788
Painting, half length. Private collection (D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, no.27). Given to the artist’s niece, Theophila Palmer. Exhibited RA 1790 (35). Copies include one in Dr Johnson’s House, London.

Portraits by other Artists
These are also summarised in D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 2000, pp 591-92.

1766
Painting by Angelica Kauffmann, three-quarter-length seated, a bust of Michelangelo behind him. Saltram.

c.1767
Drawing by Nathaniel Dance, whole-length seated, with Angelica Kauffmann. Harewood (illus. D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Self Portraits, exhibition catalogue, Sudbury, Plymouth, 1992, no.27).

1768
Drawing by P-E. Falconet, bust length, engraved by D. P. Pariset (see D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Self Portraits, exhibition catalogue, Sudbury, Plymouth, 1992, no.28).

1772
Painting by Johann Zoffany, The Academicians of the Royal Academy, see NPG 1437.

1773
Medal by John Kirk (L. Brown, A Catalogue of British Historical Medals 1760-1960: The Accession of George III to the Death of William IV, 1980, no.177).

c.1773
Miniature by Ozias Humphry, half length, wearing a brown coat, the frame inscribed Painted from Life by his Friend Humphry. Corsham Court (illus. D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Self Portraits, exhibition catalogue, Sudbury, Plymouth, 1992, no.29; The Art of the Country House, Tate Gallery, 1998, no.22).

1778
Marble bust by Giuseppe Ceracchi, inscribed, probably later, ... Cirachi sculpsit Roma. Royal Academy (illus. N. Penny & D. Mannings, Joshua Reynolds, exhibition catalogue, RA, 1986, no.172). A terracotta model was formerly also at the RA and a copy is in the Athenaeum, London. J. T. Smith recalled that Ceracchi’s bust was ‘sold by the figure-casters’ (J. T. Smith, Nollekens and his Times, ed. W. Whitten, 1920, II, pp 119-21). It has been supposed that the marble may have been acquired by Watson Taylor in 1821 (cf. N. Penny & D. Mannings, Joshua Reynolds, exhibition catalogue, RA, 1986, no.172), but see 1785 below.

1782
Painting by J-F. Rigaud, with Joseph Wilton and Sir William Chambers, see NPG 987.

Painting, unfinished, by Thomas Gainsborough. Reynolds sat to Gainsborough in November 1782 but further sittings were prevented by Reynolds’s health; he left for Bath and the portrait was not resumed on his return (E. Malone ed., The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1797, I, p XLVI).

1784
Painting by Gilbert Stuart, three-quarter length seated. National Gallery Washington (1942.8.21; E. G. Miles, American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, The Collections of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1995, pp 172-77). A miniature copy by Charles Bestland in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (R. J. B. Walker, Miniatures, a selection of miniatures in the Ashmolean Museum, 1997, no.89).

1785
Marble bust by Thomas Banks. Watson Taylor sale, Robins, 15th day, 25 July 1832, lot 162 (‘A bust in statuary marble of Sir Joshua Reynolds, modelled from the life, in 1785, and sculptured by J. Bankes, A. R.’. ‘A fine original statuary bust’ of Reynolds, presumably the same piece, had been bought for G. Watson Taylor at the Thomond sale, 19 May 1821, lot 76, but see also 1778 above.

before 1788
Wedgwood medallion, attributed to John Flaxman; listed in the 1788 Wedgwood cat. (illus. R. Reilly and G. Savage, Wedgwood the Portrait Medallions,1973, p 290).

1791
Wax profile by E. G. Mountstephen. Royal Academy (illus. E. J. Pyke, A Biographical Dictionary of Wax Modellers, 1973, fig.200). Exhibited RA 1791 (643).

Painting by C. F. von Breda, three-quarter length seated in DCL robes. Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm, by whom commissioned. Exhibited: RA 1792 (390). Engraved S. W. Reynolds 1796.

1792
Enamel by William Birch, exhibited RA 1792 (275).

Undated
Medallion by T. R. Poole. Sotheby’s, 24 July 1978, lot 57.

J. T. Smith described in Nollekens's house a miniature of Reynolds, 'by Edridge, taken from a picture in the club-room in the Thatched-house Tavern, St James's-street', i.e. the Club which Reynolds and Johnson had founded in 1764 (J. T. Smith, Nollekens and his Times, ed. W. Whitten, 1920, I, p 297).

Posthumous
1798
Painting by James Barry, Elysium, of 1777-84, part of the Progress of Human Culture, in which Reynolds appears below Rubens, pointing to Michelangelo; his head was added in 1798 (i.e. after Barry had engraved his composition in 1791). Royal Society of Arts, London (W. L. Pressly, The Life and Art of James Barry, 1981, no.27). The head derived from the Reynolds self portraits of the 1770s.

1813
Marble statue by John Flaxman. St Paul’s Cathedral, London, unveiled in 1813. Flaxman began work in 1805 (Joseph Farington, Diary, 21 January 1805) and exhibited a model RA 1807 (1092). Nollekens had been asked by Lady Thomond to execute a monument to Reynolds but he declined (Joseph Farington, Diary, 9 March 1803).

1817
Bust by John Bacon jr. Formerly British Institution. Exhibited: RA 1817 (1045).

1827
Enamel after a self-portrait by Reynolds by J. W. Higham, exhibited RA 1827 (779).

Later statues include those by H. H. Armstead 1860, in the frieze of the Albert Memorial; by E. B. Stephens 1873, Burlington House, façade; by J. B. Philip c.1875, Town Hall, Chelsea, destroyed 1940; two sketch models by Hamo Thornycroft in the Reading Museum & Art Gallery; by Reuben Sheppard 1909, Victoria and Albert Museum, south front; eight bronze studies for a statue by F. D. Wood 1916 in the Tate Gallery, and a bronze statue by Alfred Drury 1931 is at Burlington House.

Busts include those by William Behnes 1860, Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery (Cottonian Collection; executed from Ceracchi’s model; illus. D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Self Portraits, exhibition catalogue, Sudbury, Plymouth, 1992, no.31a); by Henry Weekes 1874, Leicester Square, London, and by Frederick Thomas 1895, National Portrait Gallery, north front.

A painting by H. W. Phillips 1869 is in the Lecture Theatre of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Doubtful Portraits
See NPG 927 and NPG 1761b.



This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, National Portrait Gallery, 2004, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.