''The Age of Innocence'' is an

oil on canvas Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

painting by Sir

Joshua Reynolds Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depend ...

, created in either 1785 or 1788 and measuring 765 x 638 mm. The sitter is unknown, but possibly, was Reynolds's great-niece, Theophila Gwatkin (who was three in 1785 and six in 1788), or Lady Anne Spencer (1773–1865), the youngest daughter of the 4th Duke of Marlborough, who would have been twelve in 1785 and fifteen in 1788. The painting was presented to the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...

in 1847 by Robert Vernon and has hung in the

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

since 1951.

Genre

The painting is a character study, or, in eighteenth-century terms, a ''fancy picture''. It was painted over another Reynolds work, ''A Strawberry Girl'', perhaps because the earlier painting had suffered some paint losses. Only the hands remain in their original state. Since 1859, deterioration of the overpainting also has been documented.

Popularity

''The Age of Innocence'' became a favourite of the public and, according to Martin Postle, "the commercial face of childhood", was reproduced countless times in prints and ephemera of different kinds. No fewer than 323 full-scale replicas in oil were made by students and professional copyists between 1856 and 1893. The catchy name given to the painting after Reynolds' death originated with Joseph Grozer in 1794, when he used that title for his stipple engraving of the work.British Museum, ''The Age of Innocence''.
/ref> The original title given to the painting by the artist was probably ''A Little Girl'', the title of a work exhibited by Reynolds at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

. Postle, Martin. (2005) "''The Age of Innocence''" Child Portraiture in Georgian Art and Society", in ''Pictures of Innocence: Portraits of Children from Hogarth to Lawrence''. Bath:

Holburne Museum of Art The Holburne Museum (formerly known as the Holburne of Menstrie Museum and the Holburne Museum of Art) is located in Sydney Pleasure Gardens, Bath, Somerset, Bath, Somerset, England. The city's first public art gallery, the Grade I listed build ...

, pp. 7-8. The title Grozer invented began to be used popularly for the painting and later, it was used knowingly as the title of a 1920 novel by

Edith Wharton Edith Wharton (; born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and interior designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray ...

References and sources

;References ;Sources
Joshua ReynoldsThe Age of Innocence ?1788''
at tate.org.uk Oil on canvas paintings Paintings by Joshua Reynolds 1788 paintings Collection of the Tate galleries Paintings of children {{18C-painting-stub