Richard Hurleston
Richard Hurlstone | |
---|---|
![]() speculated that this MAY be Hurleston by Joseph Wright[1] | |
Born | 1740s London |
Died | 1780s |
Nationality | British |
Known for | trip to Italy |
Richard Hurlstone or Richard Hurleston (1740s – 1780s) was a British portrait painter known for being a pupil of Joseph Wright of Derby. He went to Italy with Wright and his wife. He returned and died young after being hit by lightning on Salisbury Plain.
Life[edit]
Hurlstone may have been born in 1746 in St Martin in the Fields as someone of that name was baptised there on 9 March that year. Hurlstone was born to William and Mary Hurlstone who lived in Lincoln's Inn Fields.[2]
![](http://upload.luquay.com/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Richard_Hurleston_-_Joseph_Wright_of_Derby_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/220px-Richard_Hurleston_-_Joseph_Wright_of_Derby_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
Hurleston was trained at the Royal Academy starting in 1769 as a result of a "premium" given by the Society of the Arts.[2] Hurlestone became a pupil of Joseph Wright of Derby and he set sail in 1773 with Wright, a pregnant Ann Wright and a fellow artist, John Downman, for Italy. Their ship took shelter for three weeks in Nice before they completed their outward voyage in Livorno in Italy in February 1774.[3] They journeyed on to Rome and Hurlestone was there in 1775 and 1776. In 1776 he also recreated some of the masterpieces in the Uffuzi Gallery in Florence.
![](http://upload.luquay.com/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Maria_and_her_Dog_Silvio_by_Richard_Hurlstone_or_Hurleston.jpg/220px-Maria_and_her_Dog_Silvio_by_Richard_Hurlstone_or_Hurleston.jpg)
Known paintings by him include a portrait of his master Joseph Wright which is in Derby Museum. It has been speculated by Bendor Grosvenor that a painting in the National Portrait Gallery is a painting of Hurleston by Joseph Wright but this is not accepted by other experts.[1] There is also a 12 x 12 cm painting entitled Maria and her Dog which is based on the character in the Laurence Sterne novels. A character called Maria appears in both 'Tristam Shandy and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy by Sterne. Hurleston's painting of Maria was exhibited in 1780[2] and is now (2013) in the Derby Museum and Art Gallery.[4] That gallery has other paintings based on Laurence Sterne's novels by Joseph Wright. Wright painted a first version of The Captive in Hurlestone's lifetime but the first of his two versions of Maria was not started until 1781.[5] Other paintings should include those he exhibited at the Royal Academy before he left for Italy.
Death and legacy[edit]
Hurleston died young after being hit by lightning whilst riding on Salisbury Plain.[2] Some sources give his date of death as 1777 and others report 1780. Hurleston's nephew was a proprietor of the Morning Chronicle newspaper and his son, Frederick Yeates Hurlstone, was also a notable painter.[6]
References[edit]
![](http://upload.luquay.com/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- ^ a b Grovesnor, Bender. "Britains Lost Masterpieces 2/2 from 44 to 47 minutes in". BBC iplayer. BBC. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
- ^ a b c d L. H. Cust, ‘Hurleston, Richard (bap. 1746?, d. in or after 1780)’, rev. J. Desmarais, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 7 Sept 2013
- ^ Lyles, Anne; et al. "Inside the Arcade of the Colosseum". Catalogue entry from British Watercolours from the Oppé Collection. The Tate. Retrieved 7 September 2013.
- ^ 1 artwork by or after Richard Hurleston at the Art UK site
- ^ Portrait of Lady Mary O'Brien, later Countess of Orkney, Philadelphia Museum of Art, accessed 6 September 2013
- ^ R. E. Graves, ‘Hurlstone, Frederick Yeates (1800–1869)’, rev. Patricia Morales, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2012 accessed 7 Sept 2013