ROMNEY, rom'n1, George, English painter : b. Beckside, near Dalton-in-Furness, Lanca shire, 15 Dec. 1734; d. Kendal, 15 Nov. 1802. His father was a cabinet-maker, and the boy learned this trade, but he also taught himself drawing and wood-carving and at 19 was ap prenticed to a portrait painter at Kendal named Steele. In 1757 he entered a career as portrait painter, and after local success went to Lon don (1762), leaving his wife (whom he mar ried in 1756) and his two children in Kendal. The following year he won a prize offered by the Society of Art for a historical painting, by his (Death of General Wolfe,' and rose steadily in popularity until he held a position beside Reynolds and Gainsborough as a por trait painter. He visited France twice; once in 1764 and again in 1790, and resided in Italy during the years 1773-75. While in Italy he gave much attention to the works of Correggio, and this, along with his study of the nude, greatly influenced his after-work. In 1783 Romney made the acquaintance of Emma Hart, who afterward married Sir William Hamilton, and she became the model from which he painted such well-known pictures as (Saint Cecilia,' 'Joan of Arc,' (A Magdalen,' (A Bacchante' and (Sensibility.' His (Lady Ham ilton as Circe> sold in 1890 for $20,210; his (Lady Hamilton as Sensibility' in the same year for $15,025. In the Metropolitan Museum in New York are his (Lady Hamilton as Daphne,' Fitzherber0 and 'Mrs. Scot Jacksen.> Gradually he began to withdraw from portrait painting and gave more time to his torical and imaginative work. In 1786 Alder
man Boydell founded his famous Shakespeare gallery, to which Romney contributed a scene from the 'Tempest' and the (Infant Shake speare attended by the Passions' ; while about this time he painted (Milton and his Daughters) and (Newton making Experiments with the Prism.' In order to find room for these great imaginative pictures he erected a large studio at Hampstead, which he occupied in 1797. But his health at this time began to fail, and in the summer of 1799 he returned to Kendal utterly weakened in body and mind. He had only seen his wife twice since he left her 35 years before, yet she received and nursed him faithfully through his premature senility and dotage until his death.
The art of Romney displays a certain fitful ness of achievement due partly to the instabil ity of his character, and partly to his defective early training. His defects of technique are most apparent in his historical and imaginative subjects; it is only when we examine his por traits, and especially his female portraits, that we find that beauty of form and subtle charm of color which place him among the greatest portrait painters of the 18th century. Consult Hagley, 'Life of George Romney' (1809) ; Gamlin, 'George Romney and His Art' ; Gower, 'Romney and Sir Thomas Laurence' ; J. Rom ney, (Memoirs of the Life and Writings of George Romney' (1830). •