He soon settled to the practice of his art in Plymouth. Here he painted many portraits of the great and small magnates of the county. He tried his hand at landscape, reproducing in only fair style some of the lovely scenery of Devon. At this period of his life he had for advisor, besides his father, Lord Edgcumbe, the chief nobleman of the country. Here, perhaps, began that patronage by the nobility which was so extensive that never before or since has a like amount been bestowed upon any painter.

In 1746, the father died after seeing his son well established in the profession of his choice. When the home was broken up Joshua took two of his unmarried sisters to Plymouth and rented a house. This was the beginning of that long period of bachelor house-keeping which ended only with his death, for he never married. In his later years the duties of housewife and homemaker devolved upon Offy, his niece and the beautiful girl who sat for so many of his famous child pictures. Later Offy's elder sister assumed these duties and became her uncle's principal heir, inheriting from him £100,000.

Three years after his father's death, Admiral Keppel, for many years a friend of Reynolds, asked the artist to accompany him on board the Centurion  for a cruise in the Mediterranean. Now, nothing could be more to the heart of a young artist longing for Italy and her art treasures, but not possessed of the means to take such a journey, than just this invitation. We can easily imagine how eagerly Reynolds accepted his friend's offer. After spending some time cruising about the west end of the Mediterranean they landed on the island of Minorca. Here Reynolds met with rather a serious accident. He was out one day on a spirited horse and dashed over a steep precipice. His head was cut and his lip so much injured that it was ever after badly scarred.

As soon as he recovered he landed at Genoa and began his tour of Italy itself. It was natural that he should stay some time in Florence, so full was it of interesting buildings and wonderful pictures. But it was in Rome, where the remains of the ancient city eclipsed the grandest modern monuments, that our artist especially delighted. From here he wrote home, "I am now at the height of my wishes, in the midst of the greatest works of art that the world has produced."

In his study of the great pictures he seldom copied them entire, but recorded his impressions and sketched, on the margins of his note books, certain parts that impressed him particularly. It was while working over the pictures in the Vatican that he caught the cold which resulted in his deafness.

In Rome he met many art students like himself, some of them his own countrymen. The greatest Italian artist of the time was Battoni, a man who painted after the great days of Italian art were past. Reynolds saw at once that he was superficial in his work and therefore not a good teacher. So he preferred to study the pictures of Raphael, Angelo and Correggio, great masters long dead. In other words, their silent instruction was more valuable to him than the living guidance of such a master as Battoni.

Reynolds' visit to Venice perhaps meant more to him even than his sojourn in Rome. The splendid coloring and the wonderful golden light of the Venetian masters influenced our artist deeply. He tried to analyze chemically some of these colors, hoping thereby to get their secret. It was not to come that way—this wonderful secret; it came from God when He moulded those masters and infused the beauty and color of Venice into their very souls. Reynolds, however, must have gathered something—perhaps nothing more than a far-away hint—of their skill in coloring, for in recent years, Ruskin, the great art critic, has placed the name of Reynolds among the seven greatest colorists of the world. Truly that is a choice company in which to sit!

After three years of this delightful study and a life almost free from care, Reynolds returned to England. He remained a few months at Plymouth to rest and recuperate, as his health was somewhat delicate on his return. He then set his face resolutely toward London, determined there to rise or fall in his art.

He first settled in a quarter much frequented by artists, St. Martin's Lane. Here his housekeeper was a younger sister, Frances, a rather strange woman not altogether desirable to live with. She was fond of copying her brother's pictures, which, he said, made other people laugh but made him cry.

Shortly after his settlement in London, he made one of the first of his life-long acquaintances. This was the strange, uncouth, but splendid Dr. Johnson. At Reynolds' house he was henceforth a constant visitor, often remaining far into the night. When he died, in 1784, none of his numerous friends missed him more than the gentle Sir Joshua. Boswell, so stupid in some things, was quick to perceive this affection between these two men, and so he dedicated his great work, The Life of Johnson,  to Reynolds, and placed as a frontispiece an engraving copied from the artist's painted portrait of Johnson.

From the time that the artist set up a home and a studio in London, he kept "open house" for his friends and acquaintances. Notwithstanding this, he was untiring at his easel. Lord Edgcumbe influenced many of the nobility to sit to the new painter, and so satisfactory did his work prove, that his titled sitters increased until he had more than a hundred in a year. Only a short time after his coming to London he raised the price of his work, so that he got twelve guineas for a head, twenty-four for a half length, and forty-eight for a full length portrait.

Even thus early in his career his method of laying on color and his preference for certain colors over others were thoroughly established. There were grave faults here, too, to which we owe the destruction of some of his most highly prized pictures. They cracked and scaled off, and however courteous the remark that a cracked Reynolds is better than a perfect picture by a less able man, yet the fact remains that within a few years some of his pictures have actually had to be removed from gallery walls on account of their damaged condition. He always bought the highest priced paints, so it was in the mixing and experimenting that his peril lay. It will give some idea of his method of laying on colors to relate the following incident: A servant was delivering one of the master's works, when some rude fellow struck the back of the canvas with a stick. The face dropped off as completely as if it had been of plaster.

A list of those who sat to him in a year would bristle with the names of lords and ladies, many of them famous in England's political and social history. The number who came increased until in 1757-8, the two busiest years of his life, there were no less than one hundred and fifty sitters. He acquired such facility that he could complete a head in four hours. Sometimes, when a visitor stayed too long, Reynolds would remark after his departure, "He did not know that my time is worth five guineas an hour."

In the intervals between his sitters he devoted himself to his fancy subjects, of which he has left us such beautiful specimens. Sometimes a ragged model—a man or boy from the street—was hustled out of the posing chair just in time for some noble sitter, rustling in stiff brocade or splendid in military trappings. An interesting story is told of how he painted his beautiful picture, "The Babes in the Woods."  A boy from the street had been brought in to sit for the artist. He was tired and fell asleep in a graceful attitude. Reynolds hurriedly sketched him thus and shortly the boy changed his position to one more attractive still. This the artist likewise sketched, and so grew the picture which has been so much admired.

In 1760, he leased a commodious house in Leicester Square and bought a sumptuous carriage for his sister. The lease was made for forty-seven years. This and other expenses incident on fitting up his new home swallowed up most of his savings. Perhaps he had the carriage and the more pretentious house in order to advertise his prosperity. Whatever his motive, this house continued to be his home for the thirty-two remaining years of his life. A bronze tablet tells the visitor to-day which was Sir Joshua's house. It will be long indeed ere the house where so many brilliant people gathered is forgotten. Up its broad stone staircase, made with a great outward curve to accommodate the immense hoop-skirts worn by the women of the time, through all those years passed the most splendid array of statesmen, actors and literary men and women that was ever entertained in any private house in London.

On the opposite side of the square lived Gainsborough, likewise patronized by the nobility and beauties of the time. Admirable as he was, however, both as man and artist, his was not the "open house" that Reynolds' was, nor did he wish it to be.

The art spirit, even in the dull times of George III., was increasing. Many men were painting and exhibiting their work each year. There was felt to be a pressing need for an art academy where there could be free instruction in drawing and painting, and lectures by men learned in their respective arts. Such an organization was formed in 1768 under the direct patronage of the king and hence called the Royal Academy. Reynolds was elected president by acclamation. He occupied the position until his death. Here models were furnished for drawing and painting, instruction was given in the various branches of the fine arts, while lectures were delivered at intervals. Some of our most valuable art literature is the printed collections of these lectures, good examples of which are Reynolds' Discourses on Painting  and Flaxman's Lectures on Sculpture. 

Once a year there was an exhibition of pictures, always so stimulating to artists. Everything was free to students prepared to take the work. Many illustrious names shine forth from the roll of membership and the list of presidents. Among the latter may be mentioned Benjamin West, one of the founders of American painting, and Frederick Leighton and John E. Millais, Englishmen of our own day.

Among the thirty-six original members of the Royal Academy we note the name of the beautiful and accomplished Angelica Kauffmann. She was the daughter of a poor Swiss painter, and an artist of large reputation in her life-time. In 1766, she came to London and was at once received into that select coterie over which Sir Joshua presided in Leicester Square. For seventeen years she made her home in London, working constantly at her art. Some say that at one time she was deeply in love with Reynolds. However, hers was a heart in which emotions played but lightly and she grieved little, if any, that, despite her charms, the courtly President of the Academy still continued to choose a bachelor's life. Miss Thackeray, the daughter of the great novelist, wrote a short story called Miss Angel,  in which Angelica Kauffmann and several of Reynolds' circle figure in an interesting way.