A Caricature Group: Sir Charles Turner, Mr. Cook, Mr. John Woodyeare, and Rev. Dr. William Drake

Reynolds's Caricature Group of Sir Charles Turner, Mr. Cook, Mr. Woodyeare, and Rev. Dr. Drake from 1751 belongs to the remarkable body of comic group portraits he produced during his Italian period. The painting represents a type of artwork entirely separate from his formal Grand Manner practice: intimate, affectionate, designed for circulation within the closed social world of British Grand Tourists rather than for public display. The four subjects — English gentlemen encountered in Rome or elsewhere in Italy — are depicted in a style that draws on the Italian tradition of caricatura established by Carracci and developed by Pier Leone Ghezzi, whose grotesque character studies Reynolds would have seen in abundance in Rome. The Rhode Island School of Design Museum's holding of this canvas reflects the broad dispersal of Reynolds's Italian caricatures through the art market from the eighteenth century onward, as the private collections of the men depicted or their descendants were broken up. Reynolds's theoretical rejection of caricature in the Discourses — where he argued that it represented the antithesis of ideal beauty — makes these works particularly fascinating as evidence of the gap between his public doctrine and private practice.

The compact group is arranged with casual animation, figures overlapping in informal communion. Reynolds uses a limited palette suited to the sketch-like intent, with quick characterization of faces. Despite the caricature exaggeration, the underlying draughtsmanship reveals the confident hand of a trained painter.