Richard Hurlstone or Richard Hurleston (1740s – 1780s) was a British portrait painter known for being a pupil of

Joseph Wright of Derby Joseph Wright (3 September 1734 – 29 August 1797), styled Joseph Wright of Derby, was an English landscape and portrait painter. He has been acclaimed as "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the Industrial Revolution". Wr ...

. He went to Italy with Wright and his wife. He returned and died young after being hit by lightning on Salisbury Plain.

Life

Hurlstone may have been born in 1746 in

St Martin in the Fields St Martin-in-the-Fields is a Church of England parish church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. It is dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. There has been a church on the site since at least the medie ...

as someone of that name was baptised there on 9 March that year. Hurlstone was born to William and Mary Hurlstone who lived in

Lincoln's Inn Fields Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in develo ...

.L. H. Cust, ‘Hurleston, Richard (bap. 1746?, d. in or after 1780)’, rev. J. Desmarais, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 7 Sept 2013
/ref> Richard Hurleston - Joseph Wright of Derby - Google Art Project

Richard Hurleston - Joseph Wright of Derby - Google Art Project

Hurleston was trained at the Royal Academy starting in 1769 as a result of a "premium" given by the Society of the Arts. Hurlestone became a pupil of

and he set sail in 1773 with Wright, a pregnant Ann Wright and a fellow artist, John Downman, for Italy. Their ship took shelter for three weeks in

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative ...

before they completed their outward voyage in

Livorno Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 158,493 residents in December 2017. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn (pronou ...

in Italy in February 1774. They journeyed on to Rome and Hurlestone was there in 1775 and 1776. In 1776 he also recreated some of the masterpieces in the Uffuzi Gallery in Florence. Maria and her Dog Silvio by Richard Hurlstone or Hurleston

Maria and her Dog Silvio by Richard Hurlstone or Hurleston

Known paintings by him include a portrait of his master Joseph Wright which is in Derby Museum. It has been speculated by

Bendor Grosvenor Bendor Gerard Robert Grosvenor (born 27 November 1977) is a British art historian, writer and former art dealer. He is known for discovering a number of important lost artworks by Old Master artists, including Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Claude Lorrai ...

that a painting in the National Portrait Gallery is a painting of Hurleston by Joseph Wright but this is not accepted by other experts. There is also a 12 x 12 cm painting entitled ''Maria and her Dog'' which is based on the character in the

Laurence Sterne Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and '' A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', publishe ...

novels. A character called Maria appears in both

Tristam Shandy ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', also known as ''Tristram Shandy'', is a novel by Laurence Sterne, inspired by ''Don Quixote''. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others followin ...

'' and ''

A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'' is a novel by Laurence Sterne, written and first published in 1768, as Sterne was facing death. In 1765, Sterne travelled through France and Italy as far south as Naples, and after returning det ...

'' by Sterne. Hurleston's painting of Maria was exhibited in 1780 and is now (2013) in the

Derby Museum and Art Gallery Derby Museum and Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery in Derby, England. It was established in 1879, along with Derby Central Library, in a new building designed by Richard Knill Freeman and given to Derby by Michael Thomas Bass. The colle ...

. That gallery has other paintings based on Laurence Sterne's novels by Joseph Wright. Wright painted a first version of The Captive in Hurlestone's lifetime but the first of his two versions of ''Maria'' was not started until 1781. Other paintings should include those he exhibited at the Royal Academy before he left for Italy.

Death and legacy

Hurleston died young after being hit by lightning whilst riding on Salisbury Plain. Some sources give his date of death as 1777 and others report 1780. Hurleston's nephew was a proprietor of the

Morning Chronicle ''The Morning Chronicle'' was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London. It was notable for having been the first steady employer of essayist William Hazlitt as a political reporter and the first steady employer of Charles Dickens as a journalist. I ...

newspaper and his son,

Frederick Yeates Hurlstone Frederick Yeates Hurlstone (1800 – 10 June 1869) was an English portrait and historical painter. Life Hurlstone was born in London in 1800, the eldest son by his second marriage of Thomas Y. Hurlstone, one of the proprietors of ''The Morning ...

, was also a notable painter.R. E. Graves, ‘Hurlstone, Frederick Yeates (1800–1869)’, rev. Patricia Morales, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 201
accessed 7 Sept 2013
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hurlstone, Richard 1740s births 1780s deaths 18th-century English painters English male painters Collections of Derby Museum and Art Gallery 18th-century English male artists