1734George Romney was born at Beckside in Dalton-in-Furness.
1742He was sent to board with Mrs Gardner at Dendron school.
1744Romney was apprenticed to his father, a cabinet maker. He began to sketch faces and became interested in music. During this apprenticeship he made picture frames and a number of violins.
1755Aged 21 he was apprenticed to the portrait painter Christopher Steele in Kendal at a studio in Redman’s Yard where his painting began in earnest.
1756He married his landlady’s daughter, Mary Abbot (known as Molly) in Kendal Parish Church. Their son John was born six months later.
1757 |
A Striking LikenessA modern biography of Romney is available from booksellers: ‘A Striking Likeness: A life of George Romney’ by Dr David Cross; Ashgate Press 2000
Self portrait. Private Collection, UK.
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Romney broke his indentures and set up on his own. He began to paint important people in the town and notable county families such as the Stricklands of Sizergh Castle and the Wilsons of Dallam Tower.
1760
A daughter Ann was born.
1762
His ambition to succeed in London drove him to hold a lottery in Kendal Town Hall of 20 historical and landscape pictures which yielded 41 guineas. He shared this and other savings with his wife and set off for London on 14th March on horseback. The journey took 7 days. He arrived in a city where over 100 portrait painters were working.
Romney had very few acquaintances in London but they did include a wealthy banker Rowland Stephenson the son-in-law to a Kendal Alderman. He also soon met Daniel Braithwaite who worked in the Post Office and later became secretary to the Postmaster General. Through these contacts he soon began to mix in middle class and professional circles. He also studied at the important cast collection of the Duke of Richmond, who became a patron of Romney’s for the next thirty years. At this time he met young John Flaxman and gave him much encouragement; later Flaxman became a celebrated designer for Wedgwood and sculptor.
Romney had very few acquaintances in London but they did include a wealthy banker Rowland Stephenson the son-in-law to a Kendal Alderman. He also soon met Daniel Braithwaite who worked in the Post Office and later became secretary to the Postmaster General. Through these contacts he soon began to mix in middle class and professional circles. He also studied at the important cast collection of the Duke of Richmond, who became a patron of Romney’s for the next thirty years. At this time he met young John Flaxman and gave him much encouragement; later Flaxman became a celebrated designer for Wedgwood and sculptor.
1763
Romney entered the Death of General Wolfe for a Society of Arts prize for historical painting and was awarded 25 guineas; he sold the painting that year for a further 25 guineas. His fame began to spread.
He moved to a larger studio at Charing Cross and shortly after to Covent Garden where many artists lived.
His daughter Ann died at just 3 years old.
He moved to a larger studio at Charing Cross and shortly after to Covent Garden where many artists lived.
His daughter Ann died at just 3 years old.
1764
He set off on a trip to Paris with Thomas Greene a friend from Slyne Hall near Lancaster. In Paris he met French artists and saw many famous works.
1765 and 1767
He returned to the north on working visits.
1768
Richard Cumberland, dramatist and art critic became a firm friend.
1772
His income was £1200 a year and he prepared for a Grand Tour on the Continent to complete his training and enhance his standing.
1773
Romney was 38 and he set off for Italy with Ozias Humphry, leaving £200 for his wife. He first visited Paris again and reached Rome in June. He settled down to study and draw and largely avoided the social whirl but he did meet famous artists.
1775
He returned to London in July and with his newly gained experience he soon had a busy life with full time portraiture. By Christmas he had moved into 24 Cavendish Square, an impressive address. During the next 15 years he was at the height of his profession and he became as popular as any portraitist in the kingdom. He was a very rapid worker and in his lifetime produced over 2000 paintings and perhaps in excess of 5000 drawings
1776
He was introduced to the poet William Hayley who quickly became Romney’s closest friend and later biographer. Hayley became his foremost literary advisor and supplied many suggestions on topics to be painted. Romney spent summer holidays at Hayley’s home at Eartham in Sussex for the next twenty years.
1782The Hon. Charles Greville, a friend, took his mistress Emma Hart to Romney’s studio. She was 17; Romney was 47. In the next 4 years she sat for him about 180 times and she appears in around 40 portraits as well as a number of drawings. Romney was entranced by Emma. She was a painter’s dream with her beauty and a mobile face and figure which enabled her to portray a wide range of emotions and characters.
1786Emma left London for Naples where she became the mistress of Sir William Hamilton. She was now a society beauty and though unmarried gradually took her place at the court of the King and Queen of Naples. In 1791 she returned to England to be married to Sir William. She sat for Romney 34 times between June and September, the last time on her wedding day immediately after the ceremony (the only time as Lady Hamilton). She returned to Naples and never saw Romney again.
At this time Romney began to realise a lifelong dream to paint historical subjects and threw himself into painting scenes from Shakespeare for a new gallery: John Boydell’s Shakepeare Gallery. Romney regarded his portraiture as a treadmill and longed to break out and paint more freely. |
Emma Hart as a Bacchante. Private collection, UK.
Emma Hart as Alope, after Romney. Private collection, UK.
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1790
He visited Paris again, which was then in the throes of the Revolution. The Bastille had fallen the year before but the terror of the guillotine was still 3 years away. Initially he was sympathetic to the Revolution and this fired some of his most important work of this year, the studies of John Howard visiting prisons.
Romney's “revolutionary” friendships included Thomas Paine, author of “The Rights of Man” and an important figure in the American as well as the French Revolution. However the terror of the guillotine when it came, changed his attitude and by 1797 he is reported as believing that ‘monarchy is best after all’.
Romney's “revolutionary” friendships included Thomas Paine, author of “The Rights of Man” and an important figure in the American as well as the French Revolution. However the terror of the guillotine when it came, changed his attitude and by 1797 he is reported as believing that ‘monarchy is best after all’.
1792
With the death of Reynolds, Romney was the leader of the portrait painting profession and he was turning sitters away. He finished his portrait of Thomas Paine in July.
1794
Romney was sixty. His health began to decline and he suffered bouts of severe depression.
1796
John, his son who was a don at Cambridge, persuaded him to buy a plot of land at Hampstead on Holly Bush Hill. Here he built a fine house with a magnificent view of the metropolis, which building he partly supervised himself having sacked the architect. His depression increased particularly because of the death of many of his friends.
1799His family persuaded him to return to his wife in Kendal. He did little more of note and died on
November 15th 1802.
He is buried in Dalton churchyard and there is a cenotaph in Kendal Parish Church. His wife lived on until 1823, dying at 97. His son returned to become a landed gentleman at Whitestock Hall near Rusland.
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Over 400 of Romney’s 2000 paintings are hung in public collections around the world in 23 different countries.The collections near Kendal are very important, notably at Abbot Hall, Kendal Town Hall and Sizergh Castle.
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Romney and Nature
Musings from a forester’s lair
Trees
New Year’s day was a convenient time for checking on a feeling that had been growing for some time: Romney liked birch trees!
I turned every page of the new three volume Romney catalogue raisonne by Alex Kidson and it showed how right I was. The great majority of his larger portraits, which are framed by foliage, include young, 20–30 year old birch trees (Betula pendula). The obvious advantage of birch over other native species is the overall white bark which includes smooth patches which can be painted to enliven the upright foliage opposite the portrait, e.g. cat. no. 1203.
Seasons
Whilst looking at all the paintings with a natural framework i.e. tree stems with overhead foliage, it became clear that Romney just portrayed two seasons: summer or autumn. The choice of season has everything to do with colour balance and enhancement in the painting and nothing to do with the date it was commissioned or the times of the sittings.
For male sitters, who were often dressed in strong dark colours such as green or black, the accompanying season is the high green of summer. However, if the sitter chooses a red coat then he is shown against autumnal colours.
For the ladies, who mainly wear white, Romney nearly always shows them against the golds of autumn though a silver dress is set in summer (see Lady Pole). Similarly red, auburn and warm brown hair get the autumn treatment.
This can lead to pendant pairs depicting different seasons: cat. no.s 884 and 885 show Mr Milles under trees in summer, whilst Mrs Milles completes the picture but she is standing under trees in autumn colours.
In the pair cat. no.s 1039 and 1040, Sir John Pole, in a red coat, is standing under trees of an autumn cast whereas Lady Pole, in a silver dress, is standing under trees with dark green, full summer leaf. This is an unusual pendant pair despite being painted in the same year.
Birds and animals
Romney painted hundreds of country backgrounds to his portraits but never once showed a bird in flight.
He did not seem confident in painting larger animals and he paid Sawrey Gilpin for most of his horses and the lions in Emma as Alope cat. no. 1482. However, when it came to dogs, of which there are over forty paintings, he shows considerable skill and he must have painted nearly all of them himself. Some portraits include pets or working dogs, obviously brought in by their owners to be included in the picture. Many others in the late 1770s and early 1780s seem to include a friendly studio dog, a springer spaniel, which finds its way into the compositions and for which Romney varies the colour of its coat. Whilst nearly all the pictures show the dog as subservient to his owner, there is one painting of Lord George Brooke cat. no. 154, which gives the dog equal prominence to his master. Both gaze at the artist with heads together. It makes an arresting painting.
Perhaps another reader could identify the breeds of dog, they seem to vary from a small dachshund to a massive wolfhound; though perhaps it is difficult to say how many breeds had been developed by the end of the eighteenth century.