William Doughty(1757-1792) after Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. (1723-1792).

D^r Samuel Johnson. Mezzotint. Chaloner Smith 2. A previously undescribed state between I and II, before 'Dr' was erased and 'LLD'added. 18 x 13 (sheet 18 3/8 x 13 3/8). Inscription: Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Engraved by Willi^m Doughty. / D^r Samuel Johnson/ London Publish'd as the Act directs June 24 1779 by William Doughty No 4 Little Titchfield St Cavendish Square. Two small punctures, one near the left-hand plate mark and one just above the lower plate mark. Slight scattered foxing. An extremely rich, tonal impression printed on cream laid paper. Provenance: E.L. Knoedler, New York. Signed and titled in the plate. Anrare, probably unique proof. $3,750.

William Doughty was an English painter and engraver. His earliest known works are three etchings dated 1772-3, after portrait drawings by such painters as Thomas Barrow ( fl 1770-1819) and Lewis Vaslet (d 1808). In 1775 William Mason, poet and Precentor of York Minster, wrote to Joshua Reynolds recommending Doughty as a pupil. Reynolds agreed, and Doughty was enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools, London, on 8 April 1775, remaining in Reynolds's house until 1778. During this time he sent five portraits to the Academy, including perhaps his finest work, an oval bust-length portrait of William Mason (exh. RA 1778; York, C.A.G.). His oval bust of William Whitehead, Poet Laureate (?exh. RA 1778; London, V&A), was engraved in 1787 for Mason's edition of Whitehead's Works (pubd 1788), and Mason's patronage can also be detected in the commission, probably of 1777, to paint a posthumous likeness of the poet Thomas Gray (untraced). In 1778 Doughty visited York and Ireland, but the only memorable result was the half-length portrait of Miss Sisson (Dublin, N.G.) with fashionably piled-up hair, holding an open book, a striking composition in spite of its obvious debt to Reynolds. Doughty returned to London, where, in 1779, he settled in Little Titchfield Street, Cavendish Square, and executed five powerful mezzotints after pictures by Reynolds: Mary Palmer, Admiral Keppel, Dr Johnson, William Mason and Ariadne (all 1779). Reynolds was particularly pleased with the plate of Dr. Johnson and advised Doughty 'by all means to stick to mezzotint'. In 1780 Doughty married and sailed for India but died on the way.

Reynolds painted five portraits of Johnson over the thirty years of their friendship. This one, painted by Reynolds in 1772/1778, depicts Johnson of the Club, full-wigged, the lips parted as if in the act of speaking. It was probably painted for the library of Henry Thrale's house at Streatham. Johnson wrote of it to Mrs Thrale saying that Sir Joshua 'seems to like his own performance'. Hawkins said that the portrait 'scraped in mezzotint by Doughty, is extremely like...there is in it that appearance of a labouring, working mind, of an indolent reposing body, which he had to a very great degree.' This is probably the portrait of which Johnson himself said that Reynolds could paint him as deaf as he chose but 'I will not be blinking Sam.'

Johnson declared Reynolds to be 'the most invulnerable man he knew; whom, if he should quarrel with him, he should find the most difficulty how to abuse.' He quoted from Reynolds's Discourses seventeen times in the Dictionary. When Boswell dedicated his Life of Johnson to Reynolds, he prefaced it with a letter of dedication: 'You, my dear Sir, studied him, and knew him well: you venerated and admired him. Yet, luminous as he was on the whole, you perceived all the shades which mingled in the grand composition; all the little peculiarities and slight blemishes which marked the literary colours.'

Johnson himself collected prints and owned 146 portraits at the time of his death.

Whistler.

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British Fine Prints.

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