Laurence Sterne (after Joshua Reynolds)

Laurence Sterne (after Joshua Reynolds), painted around 1805 and now in York Art Gallery, is a copy after Reynolds's portrait of the Anglo-Irish novelist Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), author of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman — one of the most audaciously experimental novels in English literary history. Sterne had Yorkshire connections: he was born in Clonmel but spent much of his early life and career at Sutton-on-the-Forest and Coxwold in the North Riding, making him a figure of regional pride for Etty as a fellow Yorkshireman of cultural distinction. Reynolds's original portrait (1760, National Portrait Gallery) captured Sterne's witty, irreverent personality with characteristic brio, and Etty's copy provided both a technical exercise in Reynoldsian portrait style and a personal tribute to a literary hero. The York connection between Etty and Sterne — both natives of the region, both figures whose work challenged conventional proprieties — gives this copy particular resonance within the York Art Gallery's comprehensive collection.

The copy translates Reynolds's characteristic portrait style through Etty's warmer palette, subtly altering the original's cooler tonality. Sterne's famously quizzical expression is rendered with attention to the details of physiognomy that convey personality. The exercise of copying allowed Etty to analyze Reynolds's approach to flesh painting and costume rendering from the inside.