Gilbert Stuart, Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
National Gallery of Art, Andrew W. Mellon Collection 1941.8.21
Although Reynolds never received any academic training, his experience of Italy, his reverence for Raphael, Michelangelo, and the Venetians, and the notebooks that he filled with drawings from classical antiquity and from the Old Masters were the foundation of his ideals and practice as a painter. He established his reputation in London with his masterly and dramatic full length portraits. Reynolds soon became the capital's leading portraitist and he contributed regularly to the exhibitions of the Society of Artists and the Royal Academy. He was appointed the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768.