Jonathan Richardson Sr., (1665-1745) has been described as `the ablest of the painters who came to prominence during the last decade of Kneller’s life and who flourished after his death’. Trained under the portrait painter John Riley, he later married his niece, he rose from a humble family of weavers to become one of the most popular and influential portrait painters in England during the first half of the eighteenth century. Richardson was, however, not only celebrated as a portraitist but also as an outstanding collector of drawings, and a prolific writer on art and connoisseurship. His ‘Essay on the Theory of Painting’ was published in 1715, and in 1722 he published with his son ‘An Account of the Statues and Bas-reliefs, Drawings and Pictures in Italy, with Remarks’, which became an essential handbook for anyone on the Grand Tour, and is believed to have inspired Sir Joshua Reynolds to raise the standard of painting in Britain by close reference to classical sources.

Whilst his portrait oils were often members of the aristocracy and the professions, his lead on vellum drawings represented a pictorial review of the principal people in his life, not least himself, and including other family, friends and contemporaries. As this sketch of Mrs. Knapp demonstrates perfectly these intimate drawings show much skill and sensitivity.

Catherine Knapp appears to be a lady who was for a brief time highly thought of by Richardson. Several of his poems in his volume `Morning Thoughts’ were written for or about her expressing “an ardent enough admiration for Mrs. Knapp to oblige his son to offer repeated explanations of the relationship”. (Carol Gibson-Wood, ‘Jonathan Richardson Art Theorist of the English Enlightenment’, Yale 2000, p.110). These though were not necessarily coy remarks by a son embarrassed, for Richardson himself stated that it was nothing more than a platonic relationship, based on mutual esteem. His son also noted that she was “a lady of family and fortune and fine qualifications” . Richardson visited her in Buckinghamshire in 1731. Whatever the basis of their relationship, it seems to have been relatively short as mention of Catherine Knapp is confined to only the years 1731-2 after which no further allusions to her are made.

Frequently drawn by Richardson during this brief period, various portrait sketches of Mrs. Knapp exist in the British Museum and the Witt collection in London. A double portrait with her husband is in the J.P. Morgan collection in the U.S.A. A version that was catalogued in the Wellesley Collection in the first half of the 20th century is almost identical in pose to the drawing presented here and a very similar head sketch is with the Harris Art Gallery, Preston.

Inherited by Richardson’s son this drawing along with others was offered for sale after his death in February 1772. Many are in major collections either in quantity or individually and examples such as this portrait are increasingly difficult to find on the art market.