- Also known as
-
Jonathan Richardson Senior
-
primary name: Richardson, Jonathan
- Details
- individual; collector; printmaker; painter/draughtsman; British; Male
- Life dates
- 1667-1745
- Biography
- Portrait painter, writer on art, collector and etcher; student of the painter John Riley; both he and his son Jonathan Richardson Junior (q.v.) were among the best art connoisseurs of the period, particularly in works of the Italian School and together they published a series of travel notes in 1722 entitled 'An Account of some of the Statues, Bas-reliefs, Drawings and Pictures in Italy' (2 vols.); alone, Richardson Senior wrote 'Essay on the Theory of Painting' (1715), 'Essay on the whole Art of Criticism in Relation to Painting and an Argument in behalf of the Science of the Connoisseur' (1719). His works were reprinted together in 1773.
- Bibliography
- Lugt 2183 & 2184
C. Gibson-Wood, 'JR as a Draftsman', Master Drawings, vol. 32, no. 3, 1994, pp. 203-29; 'Jonathan Richardson: Art Theorist of the English Enlightenment', London and New Haven, 2000; 'A Judiciously disposed collection: JR Senior's cabinet of drawings', in Baker, Elam and Warwick, Collecting Prints and Drawings in Europe, London, 2003, pp. 155-71
