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For forty years they were never separated.

Cotton disposes of Giuseppe Marchi by saying, “He was a clever colorist, but incapable of doing independent work.” Cotton might, however, have told the whole simple truth, and that was that Marchi was hands, feet, eyes and ears for his master–certain it is that without his help Sir Joshua could never have attained the fame and fortune he did.

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In selecting his time for a career, Joshua Reynolds showed good judgment. He went into public favor on a high tide. England was prosperous, and there was in the air a taste for the polite arts. Literature was becoming a fad.

Within a short time there had appeared Gray’s “Elegy,” Smollett’s “Peregrine Pickle,” Fielding’s “Amelia” and Richardson’s “Clarissa Harlowe.” Here was menu to fit most palates, and the bill-of-fare was duly discussed in all social gatherings of the upper circles. The afflicted ones fed on Gray; the repentant quoted Richardson; while Smollett and Fielding were read aloud in parlor gatherings where fair ladies threatened to leave the room–but didn’t. Out at Strawberry Hill, his country home, Horace Walpole was running that little printing-shop, making books that are now priceless, and writing long, gossipy letters that body forth the spirit of the time, its form and pressure. The Dilettante Society, composed of young noblemen devoted to high art and good-fellowship, was discussing a scheme for a National Academy. Garrick was at the height of his fame; Hogarth was doing for art what Smollett did for literature; while two young Irishmen, Burke and Goldsmith, were getting ready to make English letters illustrious; Hudson was painting portraits with a stencil; Gainsborough was immortalizing a hat; Doctor Johnson was waiting in the entry of Lord Chesterfield’s mansion with the prospectus of a dictionary; and pretty Kitty Fisher had kicked the hat off the head of the Prince of Wales on a wager.

And so into this atmosphere of seething life came Joshua Reynolds, the handsome, gracious, silent, diplomatic Reynolds. Fresh from Italy and the far-off islands of the Southern seas where Ulysses sailed, he came–his name and fame heralded as the Raphael of England.

To have your portrait painted by Reynolds was considered a proper “entree” into the “bon ton.” To attempt to give the names of royalty who sat to him would be to present a transcript of Burke’s Peerage.

Unlike Van Dyck, at whose shrine Reynolds worshiped, Reynolds was coldly diplomatic in his relations with his sitters. He talked but little, because he could not hear, and to hold an ear-trumpet and paint with both hands is rather difficult. On the moment when the sitting was over, the patron was bowed out. The good ladies who lay in wait with love’s lariat never found an opportunity to make the throw.

Reynolds’ specialty was women and children. No man has ever pictured them better, and with him all women were kind. Not only were they good, but good-looking; and when arms lacked contour, or busts departed from the ideal, Kitty Fisher or Nelly O’Brien came at the call of Marchi and lent their charms to complete the canvas.

Reynolds gradually raised his prices until he received fifteen guineas for a head, one hundred for a half-length, and one hundred and fifty for a full-length. And so rapidly did he work that often a picture was completed in four hours.

Usually, success is a zigzag journey, but it was not so with Reynolds. From Seventeen Hundred Fifty-seven to Seventeen Hundred Eighty-eight, his income was never less than thirty thousand dollars a year, and his popularity knew no eclipse.

About the time the American Stamp Act was being pushed through Parliament, Reynolds’ studio was the neutral stamping-ground for both parties.

Copley, the Boston artist, gave Reynolds a bias in favor of truth; and when Townshend, the man who introduced the Stamp Act in Parliament, sat to Sir Joshua, the artist and sitter forgot their business and wrangled over politics. Soon afterward Sir Joshua made a bet with Townshend, a thousand pounds against five, that George Washington would never enter Reynolds’ studio. This was in response to the boast that Washington would soon be brought to England a captive, and Townshend would conduct him to Reynolds to have his picture taken.