Sir Joshua Reynolds was an English painter who specialised in portraits. Art critic John Russell called him one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting, which depended on idealisation of the imperfect. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts and was knighted by George III in 1769.
Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. Despite being a prolific portrait painter, Gainsborough gained greater satisfaction from his landscapes. He is credited as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of the Royal Academy.
Richard Cumberland was an English dramatist and civil servant. In 1771 his hit play The West Indian was first staged. During the American War of Independence he acted as a secret negotiator with Spain in an effort to secure a peace agreement between the two nations. He also edited a short-lived critical journal called The London Review (1809). His plays are often remembered for their sympathetic depiction of characters generally considered to be on the margins of society.
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is a historic art museum in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded in 1962 and opened in 1968, it is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous Americans. Along with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the museum is housed in the historic Old Patent Office Building.
Mary Moser was an English painter and one of the most celebrated female artists of 18th-century Britain. One of only two female founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768, Moser painted portraits but is particularly noted for her depictions of flowers.
George Romney was an English portrait painter. He was the most fashionable artist of his day, painting many leading society figures – including his artistic muse, Emma Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson.
National Galleries Scotland: Portrait is an art museum on Queen Street, Edinburgh. Portrait holds the national collections of portraits, all of which are of, but not necessarily by, Scots. It also holds the Scottish National Photography Collection.
The National Gallery of Ireland houses the national collection of Irish and European art. It is located in the centre of Dublin with one entrance on Merrion Square, beside Leinster House, and another on Clare Street. It was founded in 1854 and opened its doors ten years later. The gallery has an extensive, representative collection of Irish paintings and is also notable for its Italian Baroque and Dutch masters painting. The current director is Caroline Campbell.
Sudley House is a historic house in Aigburth, Liverpool, England. Built in 1824 and much modified in the 1880s, it is now a museum and art gallery which contains the collection of George Holt, a shipping-line owner and former resident, in its original setting. It includes work by Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, Edwin Landseer, John Everett Millais and J. M. W. Turner.
Ranger's House is a medium-sized red brick Georgian mansion in the Palladian style, adjacent to Greenwich Park in the south east of London. It is situated in Blackheath and backs directly onto Greenwich Park. Previously known as Chesterfield House, its current name is associated with the Ranger of Greenwich Park, a royal appointment; the house was the Ranger's official residence for most of the 19th century. It is a Grade I listed building. There is a rose garden behind it, and since 2002 it has housed the Wernher Collection of art.
Eleanor Clifford, Countess of Cumberland, also known as Elyanore Clifford was the third child and second daughter of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk and Princess Mary Tudor, the Dowager Queen consort of France. She was a younger sister of Lady Frances Brandon and an elder sister of Henry Brandon, 1st Earl of Lincoln. She was also a younger paternal half-sister of Lady Anne Brandon and Lady Mary Brandon from her father's second marriage. After her mother's death in 1533, her father remarried to Catherine Willoughby and Eleanor became an elder half-sister of Henry Brandon, 2nd Duke of Suffolk and Charles Brandon, 3rd Duke of Suffolk.
Abbot Hall Art Gallery is an art gallery in Kendal, England. Abbot Hall was built in 1759 by Colonel George Wilson, the second son of Daniel Wilson of Dallam Tower, a large house and country estate nearby. It was built on the site of the old Abbot's Hall, roughly where the museum is today. Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries this was where the Abbot or his representative would stay when visiting from the mother house of St Mary's Abbey, York. The architect is unknown. During the early twentieth century the Grade I listed building was dilapidated and has been restored as an art gallery.
George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick, FRS, FSA, styled Lord Greville until 1773, was a British peer and politician. The eldest son of Francis Greville, 1st Earl Brooke, he was born on 16 September 1746 at Warwick Castle. He was baptised on 10 October 1746 at St. Mary's, Warwick, with King George II standing as his sponsor.
John Romney was an English artist in printmaking and watercolour who lived and worked in London and Chester. Much of his work consisted of reproductions of the work of other artists, but he produced some original prints, paintings and drawings. Like the great majority of contemporary printmakers he worked in both engraving and etching, often on the same plate, and descriptions of his prints as being in one or the other technique should be taken loosely. His best known original prints are series of views of the Chester area and his part of one on the antiquities in the British Museum. He was apparently not related to the famous portraitist George Romney (1734–1802).
Daniel Gardner was a British painter, best known for his work as a portraitist. He established a fashionable studio in Bond Street in London, specializing in small scale portraits in pastel, crayons or gouache, often borrowing Reynolds' poses.
David Morier, was an Anglo-Swiss painter of portraits, military subjects and historical scenes around and after the time of the War of the Austrian Succession and the related Jacobite rising of 1745.
Major Thomas Pearson was a British army officer, traveller and book collector who held offices in the East Indies. His portrait was painted by George Romney, who called him "a gentleman of elegant and cultivated mind, who wisely and praise-worthily applied the riches which he had acquired in India, to the advancement of science ..." The Romney portrait of Pearson is in the collection of Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens, Akron, Ohio.
Benjamin Smith (1754–1833) was a British engraver, printseller and publisher, active from 1786 to 1833. He was born c. 1754 in London. He worked mainly in dot or stipple engraving, producing portraits, illustrations, and allegorical and biblical subjects after prominent artists of the day.
Romney's House at 5 Holly Bush Hill, Hampstead, Camden, London was the home of the artist George Romney and then of the architect Clough Williams-Ellis. It is a Grade I listed building.
John Philip Kemble as Cato is an 1812 portrait by the English artist Thomas Lawrence of the actor John Philip Kemble. Part of the Kemble dynasty he was, along with his sister Sarah Siddons, one of the most celebrated actors of the period. Lawrence had established himself as the leading portrait painter of the Regency era and had previously painted Kemble as Hamlet in 1801.
