Thomas Bardwell

Thomas Bardwell (1704 – 9 September 1767) was an English portrait and figure painter, art copyist, and writer.

Life and work Bardwell initially earned his living initially as a painter of decorative panels for his family's business in Bungay, Suffolk.

His earliest known portraits are two conversation pieces dated 1736; one, possibly showing the Brewster family of Beccles, is in the collection of the Geffrye Museum. In 1746 he was commissioned by the artillery company in Norwich to paint a portrait of William Crowe (who became mayor the following year), It became the first of nine portraits by Bardwell that were to be hung in St Andrew's Hall in Norwich.

He painted several portraits in London during the 1740s and 1750s. Now in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons, saying that "the instructions contained in that short work, so far as they relate to the process of painting, are the best that have hitherto been published". A second edition was published in 1773.