Page "Joshua Reynolds" Paragraph 5

In 1749, Reynolds met Commodore Augustus Keppel, who invited him to join HMS Centurion, of which he had command, on a voyage to the Mediterranean.

With the ship he visited Lisbon, Cadiz, Algiers and Minorca.

From Minorca he travelled to Livorno in Italy, and then on to Rome ,.

where he spent two years, studying the Old Masters and acquiring a taste for the " Grand Style ".

Lord Edgecumbe, who had known Reynolds as a boy and introduced him to Keppel, suggested that he should study with Pompeo Batoni, the leading painter in Rome at the time, but Reynolds replied that he had nothing to learn from him.

While in Rome he suffered a severe cold, which left him partially deaf, and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured