Reynolds: (English Master Painters) by Ellis K. Waterhouse (HQ582)

Published 1941: First Edition / Hardcover / Very Good Condition / Illustrated throughout

Original tan cloth with gilt titles on the cover and spine. 115 + very clean and bright pages with text and a further 300 illustrated pages with b/w plates, mild speckled foxing on the end papers. Boards slightly rubbed with time consistent with age. Overall a well preserved original first edition. (HQ582)

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Sir Joshua Reynolds was the leading English portraitist of the 18th century. Through study of ancient and Italian Renaissance art, and of the work of Rembrandt, Rubens and Van Dyck, he brought great variety and dignity to British portraiture.

Reynolds was born at Plympton in Devon, the son of a headmaster and fellow of Balliol College, Oxford: a more educated background than that of most painters. He was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portraitist Thomas Hudson, who also trained Wright of Derby. He spent 1749-52 abroad, mainly in Italy, and set up practice in London shortly after his return.

He soon established himself as the leading portrait painter, though he was never popular with George III. He was a key figure in the intellectual life of London, and a friend of Dr Johnson. When the Royal Academy was founded in 1768, Reynolds was elected its first President. Although believing that history painting was the noblest work of the painter, he had little opportunity to practise it, and his greatest works are his portraits. Google Books...