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Paintings featured in
London: heart of empire
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Sir Francis Cotes (1726-1770) was an English portrait painter of the late eighteenth century. These three portraits were credited to Cotes, but are probably paintings executed by a later artist in Cotes’ style.
Cotes began his career as a portraitist who specialized in pastels, i.e., chalk drawings on paper. Later, Cotes focused on oil paintings, which were more durable, prestigious, and much higher-priced.
Cotes was also active in the London arts scene. He co-founded the Society of Artists (1765) and was its first director. Three years later he was a charter member of the Royal Academy, whose first president was the famous portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds.
In turn, Cotes, Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough and other English, Scottish and Irish artists were all indebted to two Flemish (Belgian) artists who changed the course of British portrait painting: Sir Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck.
Rubens and Van Dyck, his protégé, were invited to England in the early 1600s by King Charles I. Van Dyck especially painted the members of the king’s court in a luscious, willowy style that made them look like the seventeenth century versions of supermodels, no matter how attractive in reality!
Cotes died in 1770, but English high-style portraiture continued on, both in Great Britain and in the newly independent American colonies. These three portraits, although probably copies, give us an excellent feel for British nobility and the upper class in the late 18th century.
For detailed information on each painting, please click an image below:
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