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 :. | the contessa della rena | captain robert orme | Lady Caroline Scott as 'Winter' | guiseppe marchi | Portrait of Susanna Beckford |
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j. h. scheffel
Wismar 1690 - Västerås 1786 J.H. Scheffel kom från en borgasläkt i Wismar, en nordtysk stad som på 1600-talets införlivats med Sverige. Om Scheffels läroår vet man ingenting utöver uppgiften i en gammal biografi att han studerade till målare i Berlin, Paris och Brabant. Scheffel dök upp i Stockholm år 1723. Uppenbarligen samarbetade han först med David von Krafft. Efter dennes död 1724 grundade Scheffel, då redan fullärd porträttör, sin egen atelj??. Ett av de första uppdragen, porträttet av borgmästare Bergstedts unga dotter, ledde till ett lyckligt och av en riklig hemgift åtföljt äktenskap med fröken Bergstedt. Scheffel samlade redan tidigt kring sig en trogen kundkrets bland adeln och det förmögna borgarskapet. Han behöll sin framgångsrika position från 1720-talet till 1760-talet. Någon ledande hovmålare eller mest gynnad societetsmålare i Stockholm var Scheffel aldrig. Hans stadiga popularitet som pålitlig och kompetent porträttmålare rubbades emellertid inte av modets växlingar, ty han hade förmågan att smidigt följa de nya strömningarna utan att pruta på sin karga och förnuftiga konstnärliga egenart. Scheffels porträtt visar sällan prov på pretentiösa barockgester eller affekterad romantisk tillgjordhet. Hans personåtergivning var utfunderad och konstaterande. I hans digra produktion ingår stela rutinarbeten, men i bästa fall är hans målningar karaktärsstudier som bygger på en stark vision. Hans målningsteknik var kompetent men anspråkslös: i helheten fäster man uppmärksamhet vid mänskobilden, inte vid utförandet. När Scheffel i 75-årsåldern som pensionerad drog sig tillbaka för att tillbringa tiden med sin familj var han en rask och förmögen gammal herre. Han uppnådde den för tiden ovanligt höga åldern av 91 år, enligt dottersonen till följd av sitt glada och jämna humör, sina ordentliga levnadsvanor och en till åldern anpassad flit och motion .
BRAY, Salomon de
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1597-1664 De Bray established himself in Haarlem before 1617, where he is supposed to have been taught by Hendrick Goltzius and Cornelis van Haarlem, and where he married in 1625. He painted history paintings, portraits and landscapes. As a Catholic he probably also made altar pieces for clandestine churches. He cooperated in the decoration of Huis ten Bosch in The Hague. His works draw on the spirit of the Dutch classicism beginning at that time, and are comparable with those of Pieter de Grebber. De Bray was also active as a designer of silverwork, as a poet, as an architect and as a town planner. As an architect, he was involved in the construction or expansion of Haarlem's City Hall, Zijlpoort, and St. Annakerk (Church of St. Anne), and Nijmegen's city orphanage. One of his poems was set to music by his friend the composer Cornelis Padbru??. Salomon de Bray was the father of ten children, of whom three (including Jan de Bray) became artists. He probably died of the plague, as some of his children and was buried in the Sint-Bavokerk in Haarlem.
Polk, Charles Peale
American, 1767-1822 American painter. Orphaned as a child, he was raised in Philadelphia, PA, by his uncle, Charles Willson Peale, who taught him to paint. In 1791 Polk moved to Baltimore, MD, where he achieved limited success as a portrait painter. Seeking commissions, he moved to Frederick, MD, in 1796. Over the next five years during travels as an itinerant limner through western Maryland and Virginia he reached his mature style. Abandoning his academic training, Polk developed a distinctive but naive artistic vocabulary with a heightened palette, electric highlights and an exaggerated attenuation of the human form. The portraits of Isaac Hite and his wife Eleanor Madison Hite, as well as James Madison sr and Eleanor Conway Madison (all Middletown, VA, Belle Grove), were commissioned in 1799 and are accepted as his masterpieces. Isaac Hite also commissioned the quintessentially 'republican' portrait of Thomas Jefferson (New York, Victor Spark priv. col.), executed at Monticello in 1799. In 1801 Polk moved to Washington, DC, working as a clerk in the Treasury. During the next 16 years he painted few portraits in oil