James Northcote was born in the parish of St Andrew’s, Plymouth on 22 October 1746. He was the son of a watchmaker and for a time, was apprenticed to his father. In his spare time, he drew and painted. In 1769 he set up as a portrait painter. Four years later, he went up to London and was admitted as a pupil and assistant into the studio and house of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in October 1771. In the household of Reynolds, he met the great and good of the age who came to partake of his hospitality. On 12 May 1776, he took his leave of Sir Joshua, to make his way in the world and about two years later, having been overwhelmed with commission to paint portraits in Devon, went to study in Italy, where he remained some three years, studying celebrated works of art in both public and private collections. He was also elected to a number of Italian academies. Upon his return to England, he revisited his native county then settled in London in 1781, attempting to establish himself as a painter of history scenes. He won some recognition for these, appealing as they did to that era’s sensibilities; his Alexander I of Russia Rescuing a Peasant Boy from Drowning, for example, won a gold medal from the Royal Humane Society. Northcote was also among the contributors to John Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery. However, to modern tastes, his appeal lies in his portraits, based on the style of Reynolds. His representation of Admiral Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood, for example, is striking, seeming to capture the astute, appraising quality in Hood’s expression. It proved a popular image and Northcote painted various copies and versions after it. Nortcote was elected ARA in 1786 and RA the following spring. His Diploma Work was Jael and Sisera. The Young Princes Murdered in the Tower, his first important work on a historical subject, dates from 1786, and it was followed by the Burial of the Princes in the Tower. Both paintings, along with seven others, were intended for Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery. The Death of Wat Tyler, now in the Guildhall, London, was exhibited in 1787; and shortly afterwards Northcote began a series of ten subjects, entitled ‘Diligence and Dissipation’ which were completed and engraved by Thomas Gaugain (1756-1812) in 1796. The series depicted the lives of two servant girls, the ‘Good’ or ‘Modest’ girl and the ‘Wanton’ girl. Both live and work in the same house. The good girl is diligent in her work and is chaste, whereas her co-worker neglects her duties and is not a virtuous woman. The wanton is eventually thrown out into the street, pregnant, only to die in poverty. The good girl eventually marries her master to become the mistress of the house. Among Northcote’s productions in later years were The Entombment and The Agony in the Garden, besides many portraits, and several animal subjects, such as Leopards, Dog and Heron, and Lion; these were more successful than the artist’s efforts in the higher departments of art, as was indicated by Henry Fuseli’s caustic remark upon examining The Angel opposing Balaam – ‘Northcote, you are an angel at an ass, but an ass at an angel.’ Northcote’s works were altogether about 2,000 in number and he made a tidy fortune of £40,000. He also sought fame as an author and chronicler of his times. His first essays were contributions to the Artist, edited by Prince Hoare. With good reason, Northcote considered himself something of an authority on Reynolds and published his valuable Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1813, the year of the Reynolds exhibition at the British Institution. His Fables - the first series published in 1828, the second posthumously in 1833 were illustrated with woodcuts by Harvey from Northcote’s own designs. In the production of his Life of Titian, his last work, which appeared in 1830, he was assisted by William Hazlitt, who previously, in 1826, had given to the public in the New Monthly Magazine his recollections of Northcote’s pungent and cynical ‘conversations’, causing some problems for the painter and his friends. His Conversations with Hazlitt was published in 1830. Northcote died in London on 13 July 1831. His portraits of Captain Charles Saxton, RN, Captain Sir Walter Stirling, RN and Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Graves may all be found in the collection of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. His portraits of Noel Joseph Desenfans and Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois may be found in the collection of the Dulwich Picture Gallery.