Many would say that his loveliest achievements were portraits of children, yet he did not attain the same freedom in his child poses till late in life.  You have all seen photographs, at any rate, of the ‘Age of Innocence’ and the ‘Heads of Angels,’ but this little picture of the Duke of Gloucester, nephew of George III., will not be so familiar.  I wonder whether it reminds you of anything you know?  It reminds me of Van Dyck.  The little duke stands with an air of importance upon the hillside, which is raised above the eye of the spectator as Velasquez raised the ground beneath the pony of Don Balthazar Carlos.  There is no mistake about the child being a simple English boy, with a nice chubby face and ordinary straight fair hair.  But he is a prince and knows it.  For the sake of having his picture painted, he poses with an air of conscious dignity beyond his years.  He sweeps his cloak around him like any grown-up cavalier, and holds out a plumed hat and walking stick in a lordly fashion.  The child is consciously acting the part of a grown-up person, which only emphasizes his childhood.  But the air of refinement and distinction in the picture comes straight from Van Dyck.  As you look at the portraits of the Duke of Gloucester and William II. of Orange side by side, it may puzzle you to say which is the more attractive.  Van Dyck has painted the clothes in more detail.  A century later Reynolds has learnt to paint with dash, though not with the mastery of Velasquez.  The effect of the cloak of the little Duke, its shimmering shades of mauve and pink, is inimitable.  It tones beautifully with the background, varying from dull green to brightest yellow.  The background happens to be sky, but it might as well have been a curtain, as long as its bit of colour so set off the clothes of the little Duke.

When Reynolds painted children he delighted in making them act parts.  Even in the ‘Age of Innocence’ the little girl is looking how very very innocent.  He painted one picture of a small boy, Master Crewe, dressed to look like Henry VIII. in the style of Holbein.  With broad shoulders and a rich dress, he stands on his sturdy legs quite the figure of Henry.  But the face is one beam of boyish laughter, and on the top of the little replica of the body of the corpulent monarch the effect of the childish face is most entertaining.

When Reynolds puts away his ideas of the grand style of Michelangelo to paint pictures such as these, he is entirely delightful.  He sometimes painted Holy Families and classical subjects, but the more the spirit of medieval sacred art has sunk into us, the less can we admire modern versions of the old subjects.  The sacred paintings of the Middle Ages owe some of their charm to the fact that they do not make upon us the impression of life.  In Reynolds’ Holy Families, the Mother and Child are painted with all the skill of a modern artist and look as human as his portraits of the Duchess of Devonshire and her baby.  It is no longer possible to think of them as anything but portraits of the models whom Reynolds employed for his picture.