The Age of Innocence (painting)
The Age of Innocence | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Artist | Joshua Reynolds |
Year | 1788, possibly 1785 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 76.5 cm × 63.8 cm (30.1 in × 25.1 in) |
Location | Tate Britain, London |
The Age of Innocence is an oil-on-canvas painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, created in either 1785 or 1788 and measuring 765 x 638 mm. The sitter is unknown, but possibly, was Reynolds's great-niece, Theophila Gwatkin (who was three in 1785 and six in 1788), or Lady Anne Spencer (1773–1865), the youngest daughter of the 4th Duke of Marlborough, who would have been twelve in 1785 and fifteen in 1788. The painting was presented to the National Gallery in 1847 by Robert Vernon and has hung in the Tate Britain since 1951.
Genre
The painting is a character study, or, in eighteenth-century terms, a fancy picture. It was painted over another Reynolds work, A Strawberry Girl, perhaps because the earlier painting had suffered some paint losses. Only the hands remain in their original state. Since 1859, deterioration of the overpainting also has been documented.
Popularity
The Age of Innocence became a favourite of the public and, according to Martin Postle, "the commercial face of childhood",[1] was reproduced countless times in prints and ephemera of different kinds. No fewer than 323 full-scale replicas in oil were made by students and professional copyists between 1856 and 1893. The catchy name given to the painting after Reynolds' death originated with Joseph Grozer in 1794, when he used that title for his stipple engraving of the work.[2] The original title given to the painting by the artist was probably A Little Girl, the title of a work exhibited by Reynolds at the Royal Academy.[1] The title Grozer invented began to be used popularly for the painting and later, it was used knowingly as the title of a 1920 novel by Edith Wharton.
References and sources
- References
- ^ a b Postle, Martin. (2005) "The Age of Innocence" Child Portraiture in Georgian Art and Society", in Pictures of Innocence: Portraits of Children from Hogarth to Lawrence. Bath: Holburne Museum of Art, pp. 7–8. ISBN 0903679094
- ^ British Museum, The Age of Innocence.
- Sources
- Sir Joshua ReynoldsThe Age of Innocence ?1788 at tate.org.uk
- v
- t
- e
- Portrait of Robert Orme (1756)
- Portrait of Margaret Desenfans (1757)
- David Garrick Between Tragedy and Comedy (1761)
- Portrait of John Burgoyne (1766)
- Portrait of Elizabeth Kerr (1769)
- Colonel Acland and Lord Sydney: The Archers (1769–1770)
- Portrait of Joseph Banks (1773)
- Blinking Sam (c. 1775)
- Lady Cockburn and Her Three Eldest Sons (1775)
- Portrait of Omai (c. 1776)
- Lady Caroline Howard (1778)
- Lady Elizabeth Delmé and Her Children (1779)
- The Ladies Waldegrave (1780–1781)
- Thaïs (1781)
- Captain George K. H. Coussmaker (1782)
- Portrait of Banastre Tarleton (1782)
- Cupid Untying the Zone of Venus (1784)
- Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse (1784)
- The Age of Innocence (1785 or 1788)
- Portrait of Maria Fitzherbert (1788)
- Portrait of Lord Moira (1790)
- Mary Palmer (sister)
- Elizabeth Johnson (sister)
- Frances Reynolds (sister)
- Theophila Gwatkin (niece, model)
- Wick House
- Grand Style
- Society of Artists of Great Britain
- Royal Academy of Arts
- Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1836 painting)
- The Club
![]() | This article about an eighteenth-century painting is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e