Joshua REYNOLDS, born July 16, 1723 in Plympton and died February 23, 1792 in London, is a British painter, printmaker and essayist. Specialized in the art of portraiture, he is the first president and co-founder of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was knighted by George III in 1769. Called "the prince of portrait painters" so much he devoted himself to this art (we owe him more than two thousand portraits) that he carried to its peak. Having shown an early interest in art, REYNOLDS was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas HUDSON. In 1749, REYNOLDS met Commodore Augustus KEPPEL, who invited him to join HMS Centurion, of which he had command, on a voyage to the Mediterranean. He visited Lisbon, Cadiz, Algiers, and Minorca. From Minorca he travelled to Livorno in Italy, and then to Rome, where he spent two years, studying the Old Masters Reynolds travelled homeward overland via Florence, Bologna, Venice, and Paris. Following his arrival in England in October 1752, REYNOLDS spent three months in Devon, before establishing himself in London, where he remained for the rest of his life. Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, REYNOLDS painted large numbers of smaller works. In the late 1750s, at the height of the social season, he received five or six sitters a day, each for an hour. In 1789, REYNOLDS lost the sight of his left eye, which forced him into retirement.