Hudson, Thomas

, a portrait-painter of some celebrity, born in 1701, was the scholar and son-in-law of Richardson, and enjoyed for many years the chief business of portrait-painting in the capital, after the favourite artists, his master and Jervas, were gone off the stage. Though Vanloo first, and Liotard afterwards, for a few years diverted the torrent of fashion from the established professor, still the country gentlemen were faithful to their compatriot, and were content with his honest similitudes, and with the fair tied wigs, blue velvet coats, and white satin waistcoats, which he bestowed liberally on his | customers, and which with complacence they beheld multiplied in Faber’s mezzotintos. The better taste introduced by sir Joshua Reynolds, who had been for some time his pupil, put an end to Hudson’s reign, who had the good sense to resign the throne soon after finishing his capital work, the family piece of Charles duke of Marlboro ugh, about 1756. He retired to a small villa he had built at Twickenham, on a most beautiful point of the river, and where he furnished the best rooms with a well- chosen collection of cabinet-pictures and drawings by great masters having purchased many of the latter from his father-inlaw’s capital collection. Towards the end of his life he married to his second wife, Mrs. Fiennes, a gentlewoman with a good fortune, to whom he bequeathed his villa. He died Jan. 26, 1779. ¹