Musée No:583.158
Regular price £25.00Miss Morris
Artist: Sir Joshua Reynolds
Date : unknown
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 – 1792) was an influential English painter, specialising in portraits, and the great rival of Thomas Gainsborough. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was knighted by George III in 1769.
In late 1752, he moved to London, where he stayed for the rest of his life. He achieved success rapidly, and was extremely prolific. At the busiest of the social season in the 1750s he was receiving five to six sitters per day for an hour each. It is worth noting that his assistants painted the clothing on the portraits. In 1760 he moved into a large house, with space to show his works and accommodate his assistants, on the west side of Leicester Fields (now Leicester Square). In 1764 he was paid 100 guineas for a portrait of Lord Burghersh, the equivalent of approximately £17000 in today’s money.
In 1784 the official office of Principal Painter in Ordinary to King George III became vacant. His rival Gainsborough felt that he deserved it, but Reynolds felt he should have it and so threatened to resign the presidency of the Royal Academy if he did not get it. However it did not make him happy, a few weeks after his appointment in reply to the Bishop of Asaph’s congratulations he wrote: “it is a most miserable office, it is reduced from two hundred to thirty-eight pounds per annum, the Kings Rat catcher I believe is a better place, and I am to be paid only a fourth part of what I have from other people, so that the Portraits of their Majesties are not likely to be better done now, than they used to be, I should be ruined if I was to paint them myself".
In 1789, Reynolds lost the sight of his left eye, which forced him into retirement.
The Sitter : Miss Morris, later Mrs Lockwood, (died 1769) was an actress, she sat for three portraits for Joshua Reynolds.
