British Painting in the Philadelphia Museum of Art: From the Seventeenth through the Nineteenth Century

Hardcover and softcover
468 pages, 11 x 8 ½ in.
42 color + 286 b/w illus.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1986
Hardcover ISBN 9780812280357
Softcover ISBN 9780876330654

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has one of the most comprehensive public collections of British painting; it owns 130 works, including significant works by Hogarth, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Stubbs, Blake, John Crome, Constable, and Turner. In addition, there are twelve portraits by Romney, twelve by Raeburn, and highly important canvases by such artists as W. R. Bigg, Mason Chamberlin, Ben Marshall, Thomas Barker of Bath, Sir Frederic Leighton, and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

Richard Dorment has brought new depth to the study of British painting of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries through his investigation of the broad holdings of the museum. In expanding the format of the traditional catalogue to include extensive, lively biographies, he has been able to examine specific aspects of each artist’s work in the broader context of his life and oeuvre. Drawing on years of research in archives, record offices, and family papers, he looks at the works of forty-four British painters, explaining the circumstances in which the pictures were painted and relating each artist to his subject and patrons. This fascinating book is much more than a critical catalogue of a distinguished collection. It enriches our understanding of the range of British art in an interesting and eminently readable fashion.

Richard Dorment was assistant curator of European painting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 1973 to 1976.