Portrait of a Young Man

Reynolds's Portrait of a Young Man from 1746 is among the earliest documented works in his catalogue, painted when he was twenty-three and just establishing his first independent practice in Plymouth following his training under Thomas Hudson. The small dimensions and intimate scale place this canvas within the category of small-format portraiture that provided the working basis of his early practice, before his Italian journey and London success gave him access to commissions requiring the full scale of the Grand Manner. The Barber Institute of Fine Arts at Birmingham holds the canvas as part of a collection whose founders understood the importance of early and less celebrated works in documenting the development of significant artists. Reynolds's pre-Italian portraits are comparatively rare survivors from a period when he was learning his craft rather than demonstrating mastery; the Portrait of a Young Man thus provides a benchmark against which the transformation produced by his Italian study between 1749 and 1752 can be measured with particular clarity.

The portrait is rendered with Grand Manner composition that characterizes Joshua Reynolds's best work. Oil on canvas provides a rich ground for the subtle gradations of flesh tone and the textural contrasts between skin, fabric, and background that give the image its convincing presence.