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Jonathan Richardson

3 of 8 portraits of Jonathan Richardson

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Jonathan Richardson

by Jonathan Richardson
black and red chalk, early 1730s
15 5/8 in. x 10 1/8 in. (397 mm x 257 mm)
Purchased, 1913
Primary Collection
NPG 1693

Sitterback to top

  • Jonathan Richardson (1667-1745), Portrait painter. Sitter in 8 portraits, Artist or producer associated with 126 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Jonathan Richardson (1667-1745), Portrait painter. Artist or producer associated with 126 portraits, Sitter in 8 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Richardson drew over one hundred self-portraits: a sustained project of self-scrutiny which could only be achieved through drawing. The soft cap he wears in this image is often found in eighteenth-century portraits as the mark of a virtuoso, a refined lover of the arts and sciences. Richardson had a superb collection of 'old master' drawings and promoted drawing as being of equal importance to painting. He wrote 'a pencil [performs]… what cannot be done when one has a variety of colours to manage, especially in oil'. More detailed information on this portrait is available in a National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue, John Kerslake's Early Georgian Portraits (1977, out of print).

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Kerslake, John, Early Georgian Portraits, 1977, p. 229
  • Rogers, Malcolm, Master Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery, 1993 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 5 August to 23 October 1994), p. 36
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 521

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Events of 1730back to top

Current affairs

John and Charles Wesley form a Holy Club at Oxford which becomes the cradle of Methodism.
Glasite sect, which promoted a form of primitive Christianity, established in Scotland by John Glas.
Last native roe deer in England is reputedly killed in Northumberland.

Art and science

French sculptor Louis-Francois Roubiliac settles in London from Paris.
The Daily Advertiser is established as the first newspaper funded by advertising.
Mathematician and inventor John Hadley invents the octant, a navigating device which precedes the sextant.

International

Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, tries to flee to Britain but is imprisoned by his father Frederick William I.
Pope Clement XII succeeds Benedict XIII as the 246th pope.
Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius observes the aurora borealis and suggests the existence of the earth's magnetic field.

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