Richard Hurlstone or Richard Hurleston (1740s – 1780s) was a British portrait painter known for being a pupil of

Joseph Wright of Derby Joseph Wright (3 September 1734 – 29 August 1797), styled Joseph Wright of Derby, was an English landscape and portrait painter. He has been acclaimed as "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the Industrial Revolution". Wr ...

. He went to Italy with Wright and his wife. He returned and died young after being hit by lightning on Salisbury Plain.

Life

Hurlstone may have been born in 1746 in

St Martin in the Fields St Martin-in-the-Fields is a Church of England parish church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. Dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, there has been a church on the site since at least the medieval pe ...

as someone of that name was baptised there on 9 March that year. Hurlstone was born to William and Mary Hurlstone who lived in

Lincoln's Inn Fields Lincoln's Inn Fields is located in Holborn and is the List of city squares by size, largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a ...

.L. H. Cust, ‘Hurleston, Richard (bap. 1746?, d. in or after 1780)’, rev. J. Desmarais, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 7 Sept 2013
/ref> Richard Hurleston - Joseph Wright of Derby - Google Art Project

Richard Hurleston - Joseph Wright of Derby - Google Art Project

Hurleston was trained at the Royal Academy starting in 1769 as a result of a "premium" given by the Society of the Arts. Hurlestone became a pupil of

and he set sail in 1773 with Wright, a pregnant Ann Wright and a fellow artist,

John Downman John Downman (1749 – 24 December 1824) was an English portrait and subject painter. Life and work Downman was the son of Francis Downman, attorney, of St Neots, and Charlotte Goodsens, daughter of Francisco Goodsens, a musician of the Chapel ...

, for Italy. Their ship took shelter for three weeks in

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one million Livorno Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 152,916 residents as of 2025. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn ...

in Italy in February 1774. They journeyed on to Rome and Hurlestone was there in 1775 and 1776. In 1776 he also recreated some of the masterpieces in the Uffuzi Gallery in Florence. Maria and her Dog Silvio by Richard Hurlstone or Hurleston

Maria and her Dog Silvio by Richard Hurlstone or Hurleston

Known paintings by him include a portrait of his master Joseph Wright which is in Derby Museum. It has been speculated by

Bendor Grosvenor Bendor Gerard Robert Grosvenor (born 27 November 1977) is a British art historian, writer and former art dealer. He is known for discovering a number of important lost artworks by Old Master artists, including Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Claude Lorr ...

that a painting in the

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...

is a painting of Hurleston by Joseph Wright but this is not accepted by other experts. There is also a 12 x 12 cm painting entitled ''Maria and her Dog'' which is based on the character in the

Laurence Sterne Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric. He is best known for his comic novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' (1759–1767) and ''A Sentimental Journey Thro ...

novels. A character called Maria appears in both Tristam Shandy'' and ''

A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'' (1768) is a novel by Laurence Sterne. It follows the Reverend Mr. Yorick on a Picaresque novel, picaresque journey through France, narrated from a Sentimental novel, sentimental point of view. ...

'' by Sterne. Hurleston's painting of Maria was exhibited in 1780 and is now (2013) in the

Derby Museum and Art Gallery Derby Museum and Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery in Derby, England. It was established in 1879, along with Derby Central Library, in a new building designed by Richard Knill Freeman and given to Derby by Michael Thomas Bass. The col ...

. That gallery has other paintings based on Laurence Sterne's novels by Joseph Wright. Wright painted a first version of The Captive in Hurlestone's lifetime but the first of his two versions of ''Maria'' was not started until 1781. Other paintings should include those he exhibited at the Royal Academy before he left for Italy.

Death and legacy

Hurleston died young after being hit by lightning whilst riding on Salisbury Plain. Some sources give his date of death as 1777 and others report 1780. Hurleston's nephew was a proprietor of the

Morning Chronicle ''The Morning Chronicle'' was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London. It was notable for having been the first steady employer of essayist William Hazlitt as a political reporter and the first steady employer of Charles Dickens as a journalist. It ...

newspaper and his son, Frederick Yeates Hurlstone, was also a notable painter.R. E. Graves, ‘Hurlstone, Frederick Yeates (1800–1869)’, rev. Patricia Morales, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 201
accessed 7 Sept 2013
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hurlstone, Richard 1740s births 1780s deaths 18th-century English painters English male painters Collection of Derby Museum and Art Gallery 18th-century English male artists