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hat off the head of the Prince of Wales on a wager. And so into this atmosphere of seething life came Joshua Reynolds, the handsome, gracious, silent, diplomatic Reynolds. Fresh from Italy and the far-off islands of the Southern seas where Ulysses sailed, he came--his name and fame heralded as the Raphael of England. To have your portrait painted by Reynolds was considered a proper "entree" into the "bon ton." To attempt to give the names of royalty who sat to him would be to present a transcript of Burke's Peerage. Unlike Van Dyck, at whose shrine Reynolds worshiped, Reynolds was coldly diplomatic in his relations with his sitters. He talked but little, because he could not hear, and to hold an ear-trumpet and paint with both hands is rather difficult. On the moment when the sitting was over, the patron was bowed out. The good ladies who lay in wait with love's lariat never found an opportunity to make the throw. Reynolds' specialty was women and children. No man has ever pictured them better, and with him all women were kind. Not only were they good, but good-looking; and when arms lacked contour, or busts departed from the ideal, Kitty Fisher or Nelly O'Brien came at the call of Marchi and lent their charms to complete the canvas. Reynolds gradually raised his prices until he received fifteen guineas for a head, one hundred for a half-length, and one hundred and fifty for a full-length. And so rapidly did he work that often a picture was completed in four hours. Usually, success is a zigzag journey, but it was not so with Reynolds. From Seventeen Hundred Fifty-seven to Seventeen Hundred Eighty-eight, his income was never less than thirty thousand dollars a year, and his popularity knew no eclipse. About the time the American Stamp Act was being pushed through Parliament, Reynolds' studio was the neutral stamping-ground for both parties. Copley, the Boston artist, gave Reynolds a bias in favor of truth; and when Townshend, the man who introduced the Stamp Act in Parliament, sat to Sir Joshua, the artist and sitter forgot their business and wrangled over politics. Soon afterward Sir Joshua made a bet with Townshend, a thousand pounds against five, that George Washington would never enter Reynolds' studio. This was in response to the boast that Washington would soon be brought to England a captive, and Townshend would conduct him to Reynolds to have his picture taken. The bet made a sensation and Rey
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