Frances Reynolds (6 June 1729 – 1 November 1807 London) was a British artist, and the youngest sister of
Sir Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depen ...
.
Life
She was born in 1729 and later kept Sir Joshua's house for many years after he came to London, and employed herself in miniature and other painting. But when her nieces, the Misses Palmer, were old enough to take her place, she (some point before 15 February 1779) left his house forever. The separation from her brother caused her lasting regret.
Her brother made her an allowance, and she went first to
Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...
; and then, in 1768, to stay with a Miss Flint in Paris, where Reynolds visited her. She later lived as a lodger of Dr.
John Hoole
John Hoole (December 1727 – 2 August 1803) was an English translator, the son of Samuel Hoole (born 1692), a mechanic, and Sarah Drury (c. 1700 – c. 1793), the daughter of a Clerkenwell clockmaker. He became a personal friend of Samuel Johnso ...
, whose portrait, prefixed to the first edition of his translation of
Ariosto
Ludovico Ariosto (; 8 September 1474 – 6 July 1533) was an Italian poet. He is best known as the author of the romance epic ''Orlando Furioso'' (1516). The poem, a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's ''Orlando Innamorato'', describes the ...
, was painted by her.
On her brother's death in 1792 she took a large house in
Queen's Square, Westminster, where she exhibited her own works, and where she died, unmarried, on 1 November 1807.
Their other siblings included
Mary Palmer and
Elizabeth Johnson.
Works
Of her work, Sir Joshua, speaking of the copies which she made of his pictures, says " "they make other people laugh and me cry;" but a letter of
James Northcote
James Northcote (22 October 1746, in Plymouth – 13 July 1831, in London) was a British painter.
Life and work
Northcote was born in Plymouth, and was apprenticed to his father, Samuel Northcote, a watchmaker. In his spare time, he drew a ...
's says that "she paints very fine, both history and portrait."
Samuel Johnson, who was very fond of her, and visited her in Dover Street, where she was living by herself in 1780, was not pleased with the portrait she made of himself in 1783, and called it his "grimly ghost."
Of her literary work Johnson held a higher opinion, and he was complimentary about her ‘Essay on Taste’ (privately printed, 1784). All his letters to her and about her show interest in his ‘Renny dear.’ He left her a book as a legacy. She printed a ‘Melancholy Tale’ in verse in 1790.
References
*
;Attribution
External links
*
*
Frances Reynolds papersat Houghton Library, Harvard University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reynolds, Frances
1729 births
1807 deaths
18th-century English painters
18th-century English women artists
English women painters
Sibling artists