“It was upon seeing this picture,” Mason continues, “that Lord Holderness was induced to sit for his portrait (which he was afterwards pleased to make me a present of), on which occasion he employed me to go to the painter and fix with him his Lordship’s time of
ADMIRAL KEPPEL
1780. National Gallery, London
sitting. Here our acquaintance commenced; and as he permitted me to attend every sitting, I shall here set down the observations I made upon his manner of painting at this early time, which to the best of my remembrance was in the year 1754.
“On his light-coloured canvas he had already laid a ground of white, where he meant to place the head, and which was still wet. He had nothing upon his palette but flake-white, lake, and black; and without making any previous sketch or outline, he began with much celerity to scumble these pigments together, till he had produced, in less than an hour, a likeness sufficiently intelligible yet withal, as might be expected, cold and pallid to the last degree. At the second sitting he added, I believe, to the three other colours a little Naples yellow; but I do not remember that he used any vermilion, neither then nor at the third trial ... lake alone might produce the carnation required. However this be, the portrait turned out a striking likeness, and the attitude, so far as a three-quarters canvas would admit, perfectly natural and peculiar to his person, which at all times bespoke a fashioned gentleman. His drapery was crimson velvet, copied from a coat he then wore, and apparently not only painted but glazed with lake, which has stood at this hour perfectly well; though the face, which as well as the whole picture was highly varnished before he sent it home, very soon faded; and soon after the forehead particularly cracked, almost to peeling off, which it would have done long since had not his pupil Doughty repaired it.”
Among Sir Joshua’s memoranda is the following very candid account of his efforts to improve himself in his art, which is printed in Beechey’s Memoir:
“Not having had the advantage of an early academical education, I never had that facility of drawing the naked figure which an artist ought to have. It appeared to me too late, when I went to Italy and began to feel my own deficiencies, to endeavour to acquire that readiness of invention which I observed others to possess. I consoled myself, however, by remarking that these ready inventors are extremely apt to acquiesce in imperfections, and that if I had not their facility I should for this very reason be more likely to avoid the defect which too often accompanies it—a trite and commonplace mode of invention.
“How difficult it is for the artist who possesses this facility to guard against carelessness and commonplace invention is well known, and in a kindred art