Page:Cyclopedia of painters and paintings (IA cyclopediaofpain04cham).pdf/85

 Blanc, École hollandaise; Van der Willigen, 252.

ROMNEY, GEORGE, born at Dalton-le-Furness, Lancashire, England, Dec. 15, 1734, died at Kendal, Nov. 15, 1802. After acquiring a little knowledge of painting from Steele, a painter at Kendal, he supported himself by painting portraits in the north of England, at two guineas a head, until 1762, when he went to London. In that year, and in 1765, he gained premiums from the Society of Arts for his pictures of the Death of Wolfe and the Death of King Edward. In 1773 he visited Italy with Ozias Humphrey, and, after a two years' absence, established himself in London, where, until 1797, when he removed to Hampstead, he divided public patronage with Reynolds and Gainsborough. His favourite model was the notorious and beautiful Lady Hamilton, whose face he reproduced under many disguises. He painted with few colours, with great breadth of treatment, and in some instances with exceeding grace and sentiment. Much of his work is sketchy, often careless in the accessories, but it is never without charm. His flesh tints are fresh, and his treatment of hair, though slight, is truthful and facile. Works: Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante, Parson's Daughter, National Gallery, London; Portraits of Richard Cumberland, Lady Hamilton, and Flaxman, National Portrait Gallery, ib.; Lord Stanley and Sister, Lady Horton, Earl of Derby; Lady Hamilton at Spinning Wheel, Earl of Normanton; do. as Ariadne, Baron L. de Rothschild; do. as Euphrosyne, Jeffrey Whitehead, Esq. Full list of works in Lord Ronald Gower's "Romney and Lawrence."—Hayley, Life (1809); Rev. John Romney, Life (1830); Cunningham; European Magazine, vol. 43; Cat. Nat. Port. Gal.; Cat. S. Kensington Mus., Nat. Port. Exhib. (1867); Redgrave; F. de Conches, 271; Ch. Blanc, École anglaise; Portfolio (1873), 18, 34.

Vision of St. Romuald, Andrea Sacchi, Vatican.

ROMUALD, ST., VISION OF, Andrea Sacchi, Vatican; canvas, H. 10 ft. × 5 ft. 6 in. St. Romuald, founder of the order of the Camaldolensians, seated under a tree telling his companions of his dream, in which he saw a ladder, like Jacob's at Bethel, and the brethren of the order ascending to heaven. Painted for Church of the Camaldoli, Rome; carried to Paris in 1799; restored in 1815, and placed in the Vatican. Called in its time one of the four best pictures in Rome—a verdict scarcely concurred in by modern critics.—Landon, Musée, viii. Pl. 21; Musée