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Author: Richardson, Jonathan

Biography:

RICHARDSON, Jonathan (1666-1745: ODNB)

A close friend of the poet Alexander Pope (q.v.), the portrait artist Jonathan Richardson was baptized in London on 17 Jan. 1666 at St Botolph without Bishopsgate, a son of William Richardson and his wife, Mary. In addenda to Morning Thoughts, his eldest son, also Jonathan, gave his father’s birthdate as 12 Jan. 1666/67. In 1681, he commenced a six-year apprenticeship to a scrivener. When he gained his freedom, he apprenticed under the mastership of portraitist John Riley (1646-1691). In 1693 in Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, he married his master’s niece Elizabeth Bray (c. 1671-1726). There were eleven children by the marriage. Richardson was by consensus the “most influential figure in the visual arts in early eighteenth-century England” (Finsten). He was a highly successful portrait painter, famous throughout the western world. His lasting contribution is as a theorist, the author of An Essay on the Theory of Painting (1715); Two Discourses. I. An Essay on the Whole Art of Criticism as it relates to Painting. Shewing how to judge I. Of the Goodness of a Picture; II. Of the Hand of the Master; and III. Whether ’tis an Original, or a Copy. II. An Argument in behalf of the Science of a Connoisseur; Wherein is shewn the Dignity, Certainty, Pleasure, and Advantage of it (1719); and, in collaboration with his son Jonathan, An Account of the Statues, Bas-reliefs, Drawings and Pictures in Italy, France &c. with Remarks (1722). His remarkable art collection included almost 5,000 Old Masters. He died at his residence in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, on 28 May 1745. On 1 June, he was buried in the north chancel of St Michael, Wood Street. (ODNB 6 Feb. 2024; J. Finsten, “A Self-Portrait by Jonathan Richardson”, J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 21 [1993], 43-54) JC

 

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