Romney G
NAME: Romney, George
ACHIEVEMENTS: Famous English portrait painter
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: December 15, 1734, Dalton-in-Furness, England
DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: November 15, 1802, Kendal, England. Aged 68
DISCIPLINE: Painter
FIELD: Art
LANGUAGE: English
PARENTS: John Romney, builder and cabinet maker; Ann Simpson
SIBLINGS: 1 sister and 9 brothers, including James, Lieutenant-Colonel in
the service of the East India Company and Peter, artist
SPOUSE: Mary Abbott
CHILDREN: John, and daughter who died at 3
EDUCATION: Local village school, Dendron, England.
MAJOR WORK: "Anne, Lady de la Pole"
LIFE AND TIMES:
In 1755, at 20, George was apprenticed to Edward Steele, a travelling portrait-painter. When Steele decided to move on, Romney went with him to York, leaving his wife Mary behind. From York, where Steele painted novelist Laurence Sterne, they moved to Lancaster in 1757, where Romney decided to strike out on his own.
Romney returned to Kendal and, with his brother Peter as assistant, he began to paint portraits of the local gentry. He also made copies of prints he had collected in York and sold them. He pooled his and his wife's savings and went to London .
Upon arriving in 1763, Romney painted "The Death of General Wolfe", which he entered in a Society of Arts contest. The judges awarded him second place, and 50 guineas. They then reversed the decision, gave second prize to another painter and awarded Romney a consolation prize of 25 guineas.
Romney was always convinced that his rival <rival was> Sir Joshua Reynolds*, the fashionable portrait painter, had had something to do with the switch. (The two painters disliked each other all their lives). However, the picture was bought by a banker who presented it to Henry Verelst, Governor in India, who hung it in the council-chamber in Calcutta.
In 1764, Romney studied for a time in the Orleans Gallery in Paris. Back in England in 1765 he painted another historical picture for the Society of Arts competition, the "Death of King Edmund", and again won second prize.
In 1767, he painted a portrait of dramatist Richard Cumberland, who introduced him to <a pal of> Garrick*, the actor. Garrick praised Romney in verses he was writing and persuaded him to put up his prices.
In 1768, Romney's portrait of Sir George Warren, his wife and small daughter stroking a bullfinch found great favor in London's art circles. For the next four years, he exhibited portraits at public exhibitions held by the Free Society of Artists and the Chartered Society.
In 1773 he visited the great European galleries to study the old masters. <knew> Charles Greville*, the Earl of Warwick's son, gave him a letter of introduction to his uncle, <knew> Sir William Hamilton*, English Minister to the Naples royal court. The Duke of Gloucester gave him a letter of introduction to the Pope, and he was given lodging in the Jesuit College in Rome.
Romney lived an austere life, studying hard and spending most of his time in the galleries, copying paintings (as was the custom for artists then,) and became interested in sculpture. He studied the nude and found a professional model, who was the original for his painting "Wood Nymph", a work that later was bought by surgeon Thomas Keate. In Venice, he painted <painted> Edward Wortley-Montagu* in Turkish costume.
Two years later, at 36, he returned to London and took a house in Cavendish Square. Within weeks, the Duke of Richmond had commissioned him to paint his portrait. The Duke also offered him a large sum for the copy Romney had made of Raphael's "Transfiguration", in St. Peter's in Rome, but the artist decided the sum wasn't large enough.
The Duke, President of the Society of Arts, helped Romney get more work. Soon, Romney was competing with Reynolds. Between 1775 and 1781, Romney painted many of his better-known portraits, including those of Lady Warwick and her children, the Duchess of Gordon and her son, the Countess of Derby, the Hon. Louisa Cathcart, and groups of the Clavering and Beaufort children.
Romney and writer William Hayley, became good friends and for 22 years, Romney holidayed every year at Hayley's house in Sussex, where he also met the poets <painted> Cowper*, whom he painted, and <met> Blake*. Romney used some of Hayley's poems as inspiration for pictures.
In 1782, Charles Greville took Emma Hart to Romney to have her portrait painted. (Hart was later to marry Greville's uncle and become <often painted> Emma Hamilton*). For the next three years, until she left England for Naples to join her ambassador husband, Emma became Romney's muse. He refused commissions in order to paint her, and portrayed her in many difference guises, including "Circe", "Tragedy", "Comedy", "Cassandra", "Magdalen" and the famous picture "The Spinstress".
At the peak of his career from 1786 to 1790, Romney was making a large amount of money and painting an illustrious list of people: the Duchess of Leeds, the Duchess of Cumberland, the archbishops of Canterbury and York, <painted> Wesley*, Mrs. Fitzherbert (the secret wife of the Prince of Wales,) and Mrs Jordan, the mistress of the Duke of Clarence. In 1790 he visited Paris with Hayley and the Rev. Thomas Carwadine.
In 1794, Romney began to have depressions and delusions of grandeur.
He decided to leave his house in Cavendish Square because it was too small and build a much larger one. His son convinced him to move Hampstead instead. In Hampstead, he built a gallery for paintings and sculpture and enclosed half the garden for a riding-house. In 1798, without telling anyone, Romney set out for Kendal seeking his wife, with whom he hadn't lived for decades. She appears to have taken him in without reproach and looked after him until he died on November 15, 1802.
ASSESSMENT: Romney was much influenced by classical sculpture and his work is
distinguished by its pictorial artistry.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: He drew Sarah <drew> Siddons*
ONELINER: George Romney, major 18th-century portrait-painter
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Waddington, T.A.J., George Romney, A biographical sketch, with illustrations, York, 1914
Dictionary of National Biography