Page:Cyclopedia of painters and paintings (IA cyclopediaofpain04cham).pdf/53
(1841), Versailles Museum; Giotto as a Child (1841), Grenoble Museum; Ransom of Christians by the Trinitarians, Aix Museum.—Bellier, ii. 367; Meyer, Gesch., 150; Nagler, xiii. 68.
REX TIBICEN (King Flutist), Jean Louis
Gérôme, private gallery, Paris. Frederick
the Great, full-length, standing, playing the
flute in his cabinet, before a table on which
are a music book, writing implements, and
papers. The floor is strewn with books
and rolls and at the right a hound is lying
asleep. Salon, 1876.
REYN, JAN DE, born at Dunkirk in
1610, died there in 1678. Flemish school;
history and portrait painter, pupil at Antwerp
of Van Dyck, whom he followed to
England, and assisted in his works, until
that master's death, when he returned to
his native town. Very probably many of
his works, especially portraits, are attributed
to his master. Works: The Four
Chief Martyrs, St. Eloy's, Dunkirk; Death
of Totila, English Convent, ib.; Herodias
with the Head of St. John, St. Martin's,
Bergues, near Dunkirk; Thetis and Peleus,
Madrid Museum; Female Portrait (1637),
Brussels Museum.—Kramm, v. 1632.
REYNOLDS, Sir JOSHUA, born at
Plympton, Devonshire,
July 16, 1723, died in
London, Feb. 23, 1792.
Son of Rev. Samuel
Reynolds, master of the
grammar school at
Plympton St. Mary,
Plymouth. Went to
London in 1741 as a
pupil of Thomas Hudson,
and after less than two years' study
returned home and painted many portraits
at a low price. In 1746 he began practice
in London, and in 1749 accompanied Commodore
(afterward Lord) Keppel in the ship
Centurion to the Mediterranean. At Rome,
where he caught a cold while working in
the Sistine Chapel, which made him deaf
for the rest of his life, he remained two
years; he then visited other parts of Italy
before returning to England via Paris, in
October, 1752, and spent three months in
Devonshire before settling in London, at
first in St. Martin's Lane, where in 1753 he
painted the portrait of Commodore Keppel
(Collection of Lord Albemarle), which laid
the foundation of his fortune. In 1768, on
the establishment of the Royal Academy,
he was chosen its first president, and was
knighted by George III.; and in 1769, Jan.
2, he delivered his first discourse to the
students of the Academy. On the death
of Allan Ramsay (1784), he became principal
painter in ordinary to the king. He
exhibited 245 works at the Royal Academy,
his contributions averaging eleven annually.
He died unmarried, and was buried in St.
Paul's Cathedral, near Sir Christopher Wren.
Reynolds painted many historical and fancy
subjects, but it is as a portrait painter that
he excelled all his contemporaries. Ruskin
calls him the "prince of portrait painters"
and "one of the seven colourists of the
world," placing him with Titian, Giorgione,
Correggio, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Turner.
But though his pictures still have a
peculiar grace and elegance from the artistic
pose of the figures and the happy arrangement
of accessories, many of them
have lost their freshness in consequence of
his use of fading colours and his experiments
with fugitive mediums. Among the
best preserved of his works are those in the
National Gallery. A collection of Reynolds's
works was exhibited in the winter of 1883-84
at the Grosvenor Gallery, London, including
the following: Portrait of Sir Joshua
(1748), Mrs. Gwatkin; Mrs. Field (1748),
E. R. Pearce, Esq.; Caricatures (1751), Duke
of Devonshire; Admiral Keppel (1753), Earl
of Albemarle; Lord Cathcart (1754), Earl
Cathcart; Lord Brownlow; Lord Anson
(1755), Earl of Lichfield; Lady Cathcart
and her Daughter (1755), Earl Cathcart;
Alderman W. Beckford (1755), Duke of Hamilton;
Hon. W. Keppel (1758), Earl of Albemarle;
Duke of Hamilton (1758), Duke