Richard Samuel

Robert Pollard by Richard Samuel, 1784. National Portrait Gallery, London.

Richard Samuel (fl. 1770–1786) was an English portrait painter who won several prestigious medals in the 1770s in London. He is known for a small number of paintings including what came to be known as The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain of 1778

Career Samuel came to notice when he twice won the prestigious award from the Society of Artists for the best historical drawing. He had entered the Royal Academy's schools in 1770. His work consisted of conversation pieces, whole length paintings and portraits.

Samuel did a larger than usual portrait of Robert Pollard, the engraver. This work was in the style of Thomas Gainsborough and shows Pollard who was an idiosyncratic printseller who made a substantial living from his work.

Nine living muses In 1777, Samuel produced a print showing the portraits of nine of the leading "blue stocking" women of his time shown as the nine Muses of the classical world.

In 1778, Samuel painted the women on a speculative basis without taking sittings in an attempt to advance his career as a portrait and history painter. The resulting work was exhibited at the exhibition in 1778 where it attracted little attention. The figures in the painting were so idealised, possibly because of the lack of sittings, that Elizabeth Carter complained that she couldn't identify herself or anyone else in the picture.

Final years In 1786, the year that he died, Samuel published a short work that was titled On the utility of drawing and painting.