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John Opie

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John Opie Template:Post-nominals (16 May 1761 – 9 April 1807)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> was a British painter whose subjects included many prominent men and women of his day, members of the British royal family and others who were notable in the artistic and literary professions.

Early careerEdit

File:Self Portrait John Opie (1761–1807) Royal Cornwall Museum.jpg
Self Portrait, John Opie (n.d.)

Opie was born in Harmony Cottage, Trevellas, between St Agnes and Perranporth in Cornwall, UK.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He was the youngest of the five children of Edward Opie, a master carpenter, and his wife Mary (née Tonkin). He showed a precocious talent for drawing and mathematics, and by the age of twelve, he had mastered Euclid and opened an evening school for poor children where he taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. His father, however, did not encourage his abilities, and apprenticed him to his own trade of carpentry.<ref name="earland_1">Earland 1911, pp. 1–8.</ref>

Opie's artistic abilities eventually came to the attention of local physician and satirist, Dr John Wolcot (Peter Pindar), who visited him at the sawmill where he was working in 1775. Recognising a great talent, Wolcot became Opie's mentor, buying him out of his apprenticeship and insisting that he come to live at his home in Truro.<ref name="earland_1" /> Wolcot provided invaluable encouragement, advice, tuition and practical help in the advancement of his early career, including obtaining many commissions for work.<ref>Rogers, 1878, pp. 10-14</ref><ref name="Brittanica1911">Template:Cite EB1911</ref>

LondonEdit

In 1781,<ref>Earland 1911, p.26</ref> having gained considerable experience as a portraitist travelling around Cornwall,<ref>Earland 1911, pp.20-1</ref> Opie moved to London with Wolcot. There they lived together, having entered into a formal profit-sharing agreement.<ref name="Brittanica1911" /> Although Opie had received a considerable artistic education from Wolcot, the Doctor chose to present him as a self-taught prodigy;<ref>Earland 1911, p.12</ref> a portrait of a boy shown at the Society of Artists the previous year, had been described in the catalogue as "an instance of Genius, not having ever seen a picture."<ref>Earland 1911, p.26; the artist's name is given as "Master Oppy".</ref> Wolcot introduced the "Cornish wonder" to leading artists, including Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was to compare him to Caravaggio and Velazquez, and to prospective patrons.<ref name="Brittanica1911" /> The business arrangement with Wolcot lasted for a year, after which Opie informed the doctor that he now wished to go it alone, leading to the estrangement of the two former partners.<ref name="Brittanica1911" /><ref name="dnb">Template:Cite DNB</ref>

Through the influence of "a Mrs Boscawen", Wolcot managed to have Opie introduced at the court of King George III.<ref>Earland 1911, pp. 31–2</ref> The King purchased one of his pictures and commissioned him to produce a portrait of Mary Delany. He also received commissions to paint Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, both the nephew and son-in-law of the King.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Opie also painted the portraits of Lady Salisbury, Lady Charlotte Talbot, Lady Harcourt and other ladies of the court. Opie's residence at "Orange Court", Castle Street, Leicester Fields, was said to be "crowded with rank and fashion every day" and he was the talk of the town.<ref name="Brittanica1911" /><ref name="dnb"/> In 1782 he first exhibited at the Royal Academy and in December of that year was married to Mary Bunn. The match, however, proved to be an unhappy one and they were eventually divorced in 1796 after her elopement.<ref name="dnb"/>

File:John Opie (1761-1807) - The Murder of Rizzio - 49 - Guildhall Art Gallery.jpg
The Murder of Rizzio, 1787

In 1784 Opie exhibited A School, sometimes also known as The Schoolmistress at the Royal Academy (No 162).<ref>A School, 1784, John Opie at Tate Britain</ref> In 1786 he exhibited his first important historical subject, the Assassination of James I, and in the following year the Murder of Rizzio, a work whose merit was recognized by his immediate election as associate of the Royal Academy, of which he became a full member in 1788. He painted five subjects for John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery; and until his death, his practice alternated between portraiture and historical work. In May 1798 he married Amelia Alderson<ref name="Brittanica1911" /><ref name="dnb" /> whom he had met at parties in Norwich, including one at Holkham Hall where he had gone to carry out some commissions for Holkham's owner, Thomas Coke. The commission included doing portraits of Coke's Whig friends.<ref name="earland_2">Earland, 1911, p. 124.</ref> John and Amelia lived at 8 Berners Street, London where Opie had moved in 1791. This proved a happy marriage, lasting for Opie's last nine years of life.<ref name="Brittanica1911" /><ref name="dnb" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Reception and societyEdit

After an initial burst of popularity, Opie's style rapidly fell out of fashion.<ref>Earland 1911, p.50</ref> In response to this he began to work on improving his technique, while at the same time seeking to supplement his early education by the study of Latin, French and English literature, and to polish his provincial manners by mixing in cultivated and learned circles.<ref name="Brittanica1911" /><ref name="dnb" />

Although socially reticent,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Opie was part of the "Strawberry Hill Set", the Gothick villa owned by Horace Walpole who would play host to the Blue Stockings Society. Opie painted many of the society's members including Mary Delany, Henry Fuseli, Hannah More, Samuel Johnson, Mary Wollstonecraft and, later on in his career, his own wife Amelia who was associated with the society.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

File:John Opie - Winter's Tale, Act II. Scene III.jpg
The Winter's Tale, Act II, scene III, (engraving after Opie for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery)

Opie painted many notable men and women including Mary Wollstonecraft, Samuel Johnson,<ref>Dr. Samuel Johnson (Philip Mould Fine Paintings).</ref> Francesco Bartolozzi,<ref>Portrait of F. Bartolozzi (National Portrait Gallery, London).</ref> John Bannister, Joseph Munden,<ref>Portrait of J S Munden (National Portrait Gallery).</ref> Charles James Fox,<ref>Charles james Fox (Philip Mould Fine Paintings).</ref> William Betty,<ref>William Betty as "The Young Roscius" (National Portrait Gallery, London).</ref> Edmund Burke, John Crome, James Northcote, Henry Fuseli, Thomas Girtin, Robert Southey, Samuel Parr, Elizabeth Inchbald and Mary Shelley; 508 portraits in all, mostly in oil, and 252 other pictures.<ref name="dnb" /> Opie painted the portrait of Captain Mark Oates whom he had seen paint a butterfly when both men were young.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Opie painted the portrait of George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend who, in February 1792 became Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk - the county from which Opie's wife hailed.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> In 1799, Opie painted (oils) a portrait of Charlotte, Princess Royal, daughter of George III.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Jane Beetham Read was the only female student that Opie ever taught. He painted her portrait between 1790 and 1800, and asked for her hand in marriage around 1796, but her father rejected the marriage.

Teaching and writingEdit

In 1805, Opie was appointed a professor at the Royal Academy and from May 1806 gave a series of four lectures which were published as a book after his death, with a memoir by his widow Amelia Opie, in 1809.<ref>Opie, John Lectures on painting, delivered at the Royal Academy of Arts (London, Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1809).</ref> His students at the academy included Henry Thomson. Opie was also known as a writer on art by his Life of Reynolds in Wolcot's edition of Matthew Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters and his Letter on the Cultivation of the Fine Arts in England, in which he advocated the formation of a national gallery.<ref name="Brittanica1911" />

DeathEdit

Opie died in April 1807, aged 45, at his home in Berners Street, and was buried at St Paul's Cathedral, in the crypt next to Joshua Reynolds, as he had wished.<ref>"Memorials of St Paul's Cathedral" Sinclair, W. p. 465: London; Chapman & Hall, Ltd; 1909.</ref> Royal etiquete allowed for Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester to follow the Opie funeral procession in his carriages to St Paul's Cathedral. Opie's last portrait was of the Prince with whom Opie's wife, Amelia, shared a great interest in Abolitionism. Amongst the mourners at Opie's funeral were Sir Thomas Lawrence, J.M.W. Turner, Peter Finch Martineau and Henry Bone. Opie had no children.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

GalleryEdit

ReferencesEdit

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Further readingEdit

Template:Portal An exhaustive list of Opie's exhibited works, private commissions etc. can be found in Ada Earland's book "John Opie and his circle" (1911, p. 251 ff.).

External linksEdit

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