Dr John Matthews

Dr. John Matthews from 1786 represents Romney's practice in male portraiture alongside his more celebrated images of fashionable women. Romney painted sitters from all professions, creating a visual record of Georgian society's professional and intellectual elite. Romney's oil handling was distinguished by fluid, rapidly applied strokes and an instinctive sense of elegant silhouette, producing portraits of apparent effortlessness that concealed careful preparatory drawing.

The doctor is rendered with the directness and economy characteristic of Romney's male portraits, the warm palette and confident brushwork creating a sympathetic likeness.