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 :. | Portrait of Caroline Fox, 1st Baroness Holland | Portrait of Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, later Lord Hood | Mrs Richard Bennett Lloyd | miss kitty fisher in the character of cleopatra | Lady Bampfylde |
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Grigoriy Soroka
(Russian, real surname Vasilyev. November 27 [O.S. November 15] 1823-April 22 [O.S. April 10] 1864) was a Russian painter, one of the most notable members of Venetsianov school. Soroka was born in Pokrovskoye village (Tver Guberniya), in the family of landowner Milyukov. In 1842-1847 he studied art from Alexey Venetsianov then he was returned to his owner. In 1850s-1860s he resided in his home village. He fell in love with his owners's daughter Lydia but was forcibly married to a serf woman. After the emancipation reform of 1861 in Russia, Soroka remained under the serfdom system. He made a formal complaint but it was rejected and he was flogged. Soroka's body was found in the baking room where he had hanged himself. His beloved Lydia poisoned herself soon after.
Valeriano Dominguez Becquer Bastida
Spanish , 1834-1870
Jean Baptiste Isabey
French Painter, 1767-1855, Painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He trained in Nancy with Jean Girardet (d 1778) and then with Jean-Baptiste-Charles Claudot (1733-1805), master of the miniaturist Jean-Baptiste Augustin. In 1785 he went to Paris, where he began by painting snuff-boxes. In 1786 he received lessons from the painter Francois Dumont, who had also studied with Girardet in Nancy, before entering the studio of David. Although he had received aristocratic commissions before the Revolution to paint portrait miniatures of the Duc d'Angouleme and Duc de Berry and through them of Marie-Antoinette, he did not suffer in the political upheavals that followed. He executed 228 portraits of deputies for a work on the Assemblee Legislative and from 1793 exhibited miniatures and drawings in the Salon. Success came to him in 1794 with two drawings in the 'maniere noire', The Departure and The Return. This type of drawing, using pencil and the stump to simulate engraving, was very fashionable in the last years of the 18th century and reached its peak with Isabey's The Boat