Graves secured, at very moderate prices, five original
portraits. All the paintings had suffered more or less decay, and some
of them, with their frames, had fallen to the floor. One of the best
preserved pictures inherited by the late Marquis was a portrait of Pope,
painted from life by Richardson for the Earl of Burlington, and even
that had been allowed to drop out of its oaken frame. Horace Walpole
says, Jonathan Richardson was undoubtedly one of the best painters of a
head that had appeared in England. He was pupil of the celebrated Riley,
the master of Hudson, of whom Sir Joshua took lessons in his art, and it
was Richardson's "Treatise on Painting" which inflamed the mind of
young Reynolds, and stimulated his ambition to become a great painter.
Pope seems to have had a real affection for Richardson, and probably sat
to him for this picture some time during the year 1732. In Pope's
correspondence there is a letter addressed to the painter making an
engagement with him for a several days' sitting, and it is quite
probable that the portrait before us was finished at that time. One can
imagine the painter and the poet chatting together day after day, in
presence of that canvas. During the same year Pope's mother died, at the
great age of ninety-three; and on the evening of June 10th, while she
lay dead in the house, Pope sent off the following heart-touching letter
from Twickenham to his friend the painter:--
"As you know you and I mutually desire to see one another, I hoped
that this day our wishes would have met, and brought you hither.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25