REINAGLE, Ramsay Richard
(b. 1775, London, 1862, London)

Biography

English painter, part of a family of painters, son of Philip Reinagle. He was a pupil of his father, whose style he followed, and he exhibited at the Royal Academy as early as 1788, at the age of thirteen. After studying in Holland, he visited Italy, arriving there in 1796 and travelling as far south as Naples. Back in London, his panorama paintings were exhibited in Leicester Square by the impresario Robert Barker. Reinagle then formed a partnership with Barker's son, Thomas Edward Barker. In 1803, the two young men erected an exhibition building in the Strand where they showed a series of ten panoramas.

In 1805 Reinagle was elected an associate of the Society of Painters in Watercolours, and in 1806 a member. He became treasurer in 1807, and was president from 1808 to 1812. Between 1806 and 1812 he sent to its exhibitions sixty-seven drawings, mostly Italian landscapes and scenery of the English lakes. During the same period he exhibited portraits and landscapes in oil at the Royal Academy, of which he became an associate in 1814, and an academician in 1823.

Reinagle was a clever copyist of the old masters, and is said to have been much employed by a picture-dealer in restoring and 'improving' their works. In 1848 he sent to the Royal Academy exhibition as his own work a small picture of 'Shipping in a Breeze and Rainy Weather off Hurst Castle,' painted by a young artist named J. W. Yarnold, which he had purchased at a broker's shop, and in which he had made some slight alterations. Attention was called to the imposition, and a full inquiry made by the academy resulted in his being called upon to resign his diploma as a royal academician. He continued to exhibit at the academy until 1857, but in his later years sank into poverty.