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 :. | John Armstrong | the hon, charles sloane cadogan | Portrait of Lady Elizabeth Hamilton | Elizabeth Drax, Countess of Berkeley | Portrait of John Stuart |
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Antoon Claeissens
(his name is given in many varieties, with his first name rendered as Anton, Anthonie, Anthony, Anthuenis, and his surname as Claes, Claesz, Claeis, Claeiss, Claessens and Claeissins), the son of Pieter Claes the elder, painted historical and allegorical subjects, and portraits. He was a native of Bruges, and there entered the Guild of St. Luke in 1575, and became its dean in 1586, 1590, and 1601. He died in 1613. His works, several of which are in the Hôtel-de-Ville and churches of Bruges, are distinguished by their fine colouring and finish. In the H6tel-de-Ville is a 'Grand Banquet' with many portraits of magistrates of the time, dated 1574. His son, Pieter Anthonie, was dean of the Guild of St. Luke at Bruges in 1607, and died in 1608.
FERRARI, Defendente
Italian painter, Piedmont school (b. ca. 1490, Chivasso, d. after 1531)
VAFFLARD, Pierre-Auguste
French painter b. 1777, Paris, d. 1837, Paris,French painter. A pupil of Jean-Baptiste Regnault, he exhibited regularly in the Salon between 1800 and 1831. He executed a number of unremarkable academic works on Classical subjects, for example Electra (1804; exh. Salon 1814) and Orestes Sleeping (1819; both Dijon, Mus. B.-A.). Vafflard gained more success with his Troubadour pictures, which he began to paint in the early 19th century, at the outset of this fashion. They are remarkable for their absence of colour, their theatrical quality and contrasted lighting effects. One of his earliest Troubadour scenes was Emma and Eginhard (exh. Salon 1804; Evreux, Mus. Evreux), based on an episode in the history of Charlemagne's court and painted at a time when the Holy Roman Empire was in fashion in official French circles. In this sentimental painting Vafflard demonstrated his historicizing intentions by emphasizing medieval costume and Gothic architecture and seeking to create an atmosphere similar to the romans de la chevalerie, so highly thought of in France at the end of the 18th century. In the same Salon he exhibited a strange and novel painting, Young Holding his Dead Daughter in his Arms (Angouleme, Mus. Mun.), taken from Edward Young's Night Thoughts (pubd in French in 1769-70).