Richard Cosway
3 of 16 portraits of Richard Cosway
- Overview
- Extended Catalogue Entry
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Richard Cosway
by Richard Cosway
pencil and wash, circa 1790
4 1/8 in. x 3 1/8 in. (105 mm x 79 mm) oval
Given by Georgiana Margaretta Zornlin, 1870
Primary Collection
NPG 304
Sitterback to top
- Richard Cosway (1742-1821), Miniature painter. Sitter in 16 portraits, Artist or producer associated with 101 portraits.
Artistback to top
- Richard Cosway (1742-1821), Miniature painter. Artist or producer associated with 101 portraits, Sitter in 16 portraits.
Linked publicationsback to top
- Edited by Lucy Peltz & Louise Stewart, Love Stories: Art, Passion & Tragedy, 2020, p. 83
- Ingamells, John, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, 2004, p. 124
- Piper, David, The English Face, 1992, p. 185
- Rideal, Liz, Insights: Self-portraits, 2005, p. 92
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 145
- Schama, Simon, The Face of Britain: The Nation Through its Portraits, 2015-09-15, p. 154
- Walker, Richard, Miniatures: 300 Years of the English Miniature, 1998, p. 85 Read entry
Cosway's career as one of the great painters of the eighteenth century began with portraits of the fashionable world in London, especially of the Duchess of Devonshire, Mrs Fitzherbert and the Prince of Wales. He was ridiculously vain and pompous but able, at his best, to produce miraculously beautiful miniatures. NPG 304 is a relatively modest image, showing himself dressed in the fashionable clothes of about 1790 and with the frizzled hair popularised earlier by the Prince of Wales.
Events of 1790back to top
Current affairs
Attempts to modify the Test and Corporation Acts are defeated, despite campaigning by dissenters such as the prominent Unitarian preacher and pamphleteer, Richard Price. The Acts prevented those outside the established church from holding government or military office.Art and science
Joseph Mallord William Turner exhibits his first painting at the Royal Academy; a watercolour of The Archbishop's Palace, Lambeth.The Firth to Clyde and Oxford to Birmingham canals are begun.
International
Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France. A landmark work of opposition to the Revolution which offered a critique of the radical philosophy behind events in France; the Reflections have been read as an articulation of the foundations of modern British conservatism. George Vancouver explores the north west coast of America.Comments back to top
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