Richard Cosway (Hardcover)

Richard Cosway was one of the most significant multifaceted artistic personalities active in Regency Britain. He was arguably the pre-eminent pupil of William Shipley as well as a versatile oil portraitist and a sophisticated draftsman of subject compositions. He was undoubtedly the most important, influential, and fashionable portrait miniaturist active during the last two decades of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth; his delicate style and flattering portrayals have come to epitomize Regency society. Cosway's flamboyant personality, eccentric mysticism, and brilliant marriage to Maria Hadfield during the 1780s brought him celebrity and notoriety.