The Reverend William Beele (1704–1757)

Reynolds painted Reverend William Beele around 1748, one of his earliest works from before his Italian journey. The portrait's conventional style reflects the training Reynolds received from Thomas Hudson before his Italian study transformed his ambitions and technique. Now in the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, the painting belongs to Reynolds's small body of pre-Italian work that documents his starting point as a provincial Devon painter before he became the most influential British artist of the eighteenth century.

Executed with experimental pigments and attention to Grand Manner composition, the work reveals Joshua Reynolds's characteristic approach to composition and surface. The treatment of light and the careful modulation of color create visual richness within a unified pictorial scheme.