John Opie

The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is history. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are history, landscape and portrait. Places of work recorded in the authority are London. Work by John Opie is recorded in the collections of National Gallery of Victoria, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museo del Prado, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Auckland Art Gallery.

• Name — John Opie • Born — 16 May 1761 • Birthplace — Trevellas, Cornwall • Died — 9 April 1807 • Place of death — Westminster, London • Spouse — Amelia Alderson • Field — Historical painting, portraits • Patrons — John Wolcot • Awards — Royal Academician

• Illustration — Self Portrait, John Opie (n.d.) Opie was born in Harmony Cottage, Trevellas, between St Agnes and Perranporth in Cornwall, UK. He was the youngest of the five children of Edward Opie, a master carpenter, and his wife Mary (née Tonkin). He showed a precocious talent for drawing and mathematics, and by the age of twelve, he had mastered Euclid and opened an evening school for poor children where he taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. His father, however, did not encourage his abilities, and apprenticed him to his own trade of carpentry. Opie's artistic abilities eventually came to the attention of local physician and satirist, Dr John Wolcot (Peter Pindar), who visited him at the sawmill where he was working in 1775. Recognising a great talent, Wolcot became Opie's mentor, buying him out of his apprenticeship and insisting that he come to live at his home in Truro. Wolcot provided invaluable encouragement, advice, tuition and practical help in the advancement of his early career, including obtaining many commissions for work.

In 1781, having gained considerable experience as a portraitist travelling around Cornwall, Opie moved to London with Wolcot. There they lived together, having entered into a formal profit-sharing agreement. Although Opie had received a considerable artistic education from Wolcot, the Doctor chose to present him as a self-taught prodigy; a portrait of a boy shown at the Society of Artists the previous year, had been described in the catalogue as "an instance of Genius, not having ever seen a picture." Wolcot introduced the "Cornish wonder" to leading artists, including Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was to compare him to Caravaggio and Velazquez, and to prospective patrons. The business arrangement with Wolcot lasted for a year, after which Opie informed the doctor that he now wished to go it alone, leading to the estrangement of the two former partners. Through the influence of "a Mrs Boscawen", Wolcot managed to have Opie introduced at the court of King George III. The King purchased one of his pictures and commissioned him to produce a portrait of Mary Delany. He also received commissions to paint Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, both the nephew and son-in-law of the King. Opie also painted the portraits of Lady Salisbury, Lady Charlotte Talbot, Lady Harcourt and other ladies of the court. Opie's residence at "Orange Court", Castle Street, Leicester Fields, was said to be "crowded with rank and fashion every day" and he was the talk of the town. In 1782 he first exhibited at the Royal Academy and in December of that year was married to Mary Bunn. The match, however, proved to be an unhappy one and they were eventually divorced in 1796 after her elopement. • Illustration — The Murder of Rizzio (1787) In 1784 Opie exhibited A School, sometimes also known as The Schoolmistress at the Royal Academy (No 162). In 1786 he exhibited his first important historical subject, the Assassination of James I, and in the following year The Death of Rizzio, a work whose merit was recognized by his immediate election as associate of the Royal Academy, of which he became a full member in 1788. He painted five subjects for John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery; and until his death, his practice alternated between portraiture and historical work. In May 1798 he married Amelia Alderson whom he had met at parties in Norwich, including one at Holkham Hall where he had gone to carry out some commissions for Holkham's owner, Thomas Coke. The commission included doing portraits of Coke's Whig friends. John and Amelia lived at 8 Berners Street, London where Opie had moved in 1791. This proved a happy marriage, lasting for Opie's last nine years of life.

Opie died in April 1807, aged 45, at his home in Berners Street, and was buried at St Paul's Cathedral, in the crypt next to Joshua Reynolds, as he had wished. Royal etiquete allowed for Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester to follow the Opie funeral procession in his carriages to St Paul's Cathedral. Opie's last portrait was of the Prince with whom Opie's wife, Amelia, shared a great interest in Abolitionism. Amongst the mourners at Opie's funeral were Sir Thomas Lawrence, J.M.W. Turner, Peter Finch Martineau and Henry Bone. Opie had no children.

• Illustration — Boadicea Haranguing the Britons, 1793 • Illustration — Henry Fuseli, 1794 • Illustration — The Death of Archbishop Sharpe, 1797 • Illustration — Portrait of Amelia Opie, 1798 • Illustration — Thomas Girtin, 1800 • Illustration — Portrait of a Lady in the Character of Cressida, 1800 • Illustration — The Angry Father, 1802 • Illustration — Master Betty as Young Norval, 1804 • Illustration — Philip Beaver, c.1805 • Illustration — Portrait of Robert Southey, 1806

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