RICHARDSON, JONATHAN, a portrait-painter of some note, was born about the year 1665, and against his inclination was placed by his father-in-law apprentice to a scrivener, with whom he lived six years. Having obtained his freedom by the death of his master, he followed the bent of his disposition, and at the age of twenty became the disciple of Riley, with whom he lived four years, whose niece he married, and of whose manner he acquired enough to maintain a solid and lasting reputation, even during the lives of Kneller and Dahl, and to remain at the head of the profession when they no longer continued to exercise it. The following characterisation of Richardson is by the author of the Anecdotes.
"There is strength, roundness, and boldness in his colouring; but his men want dignity, and his women grace. The good sense of the nation is characterised in his portraits. We perceive that he lived in an age when neither enthusiasm nor servility was predominant. Yet with a pencil so firm, possessed of a numerous and excellent collection of drawings, full of the theory and profound in reflection of his art, he drew nothing well below the head, and was void of imagination. His attitudes, draperies, and backgrounds are totally insipid and unmeaning; so ill did he apply to his own practice the sagacious rules and hints which he bestowed on others. Though he wrote with fire and judgment, his paintings owed little to either. No man dived deeper into the inexhaustible stores of Raphael, or was more smitten with the native lustre of Vandyck. Yet though capable of relishing the elevation of the one and the elegance of the other, he could never contrive to see with their eyes when he was to copy nature himself. One wonders that he could comment on their works so well, and imitate them so little." He quitted business some years before his death; but his temperance and virtue contributed to protract his life to a great length in the full enjoyment of his understanding, and in the felicity of domestic friendship. He died suddenly at his house in Queen's Square, on the 28th of May 1745, in his eighty-first year. In 1719 Richardson published two discourses: An Essay on the whole Art of Criticism as it relates to Painting; An Argument in behalf of the Science of a Connoisseur. In 1722 there appeared An Account of some of the Statues, Bas-reliefs, Drawings, and Paintings in Italy, &c., with Remarks by Messrs Richardson, senior and junior. His son made the journey; and from his notes, letters, and observations, they both at his return compiled this valuable work.