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Frances Reynolds


(b. May 10, 1729, Plympton Erle, Plympton, Plymouth, Devon – d. Nov. 1, 1807, Queen Square, Westminster, London )

Gender: F

Frances Reynolds (1729-1807), painter, art critic, and member of the Bluestocking circle. Frances, like her brother Sir Joshua Reynolds, was a prolific portraitist of elite London society. She painted portraits of Elizabeth Montagu in 1778 and Hannah More in 1780. She was also the author of Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste and the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty &c (1785), a work on aesthetics dedicated to Montagu, which argued for the primacy of 'virtue, honour, and ornament' in portraiture, essentially articulating a manifesto for Bluestocking art parallel to Hannah More's poetic manifesto The Bas Bleu (1787)

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Please note that all dates and location information are provisional, initially taken from the library and archive catalogues. As our section editors continue to work through the material we will update our database and the changes will be reflected across the edition.

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