Ramsay Richard Reinagle

Ramsay Richard Reinagle was born on 19 March 1775 in London, the son of the animal and landscape painter Philip Reinagle, under whom he trained. Sources also describe training with the portrait painter John Hoppner, though this detail is less firmly documented than his father's tutelage. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1788, at the age of thirteen.

Between about 1793 and 1798 he traveled in Holland and Italy to study the Old Masters, reaching Rome by 1796 and traveling as far south as Naples, with sketching stops in Florence.

On his return from Italy, Reinagle exhibited panorama paintings at Leicester Square, and in 1803 he and Thomas Edward Barker erected a building on the Strand where they showed a series of panoramas. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1814 and a full Royal Academician in 1823. He also served as President of the Society of Painters in Watercolours from 1808 to 1812.

Late in his career, Reinagle submitted a marine painting by another artist to a Royal Academy exhibition as his own work. When this was discovered, he was forced to resign his Royal Academy membership; the exact year of the episode is not confirmed in available sources. Reinagle died on 17 November 1862 in Chelsea, London.

No exact, attributable critical quotation about Reinagle from a named critic in a major outlet could be confirmed in the available sources, so none is reproduced here. Historically, he is treated by institutions such as the National Gallery, Tate, and the UK Government Art Collection as a competent Royal Academy painter working across portraiture, sporting and animal subjects, and landscape, and as a notable figure in the early panorama craze in London. His RA and watercolour society offices point to real standing among his peers, though his reputation has generally been overshadowed by his father, Philip Reinagle, and by his more famous contemporary, John Constable.

Reinagle's market is thin and is not covered by any comprehensive price database in the available research. The one auction result confirmed here is Portrait of Edward Vernon and His Wife, which sold for GBP 97,220 at Dreweatts in Newbury, UK, on 10 February 2026, as part of an Old Master, British and European Art sale that also featured a dedicated article on the artist. No further ranking of top sales, and no confirmed long-run price history, could be established, so none beyond this single result is published here. His work otherwise surfaces periodically at UK auction houses rather than through a dedicated primary or secondary gallery market.

There is no catalogue raisonne for Ramsay Richard Reinagle, and attribution should rely on Royal Academy exhibition records, museum and auction provenance, and comparison with signed and dated works. Because his father, Philip Reinagle, and his son, George Philip Reinagle, were also working painters, buyers should confirm which Reinagle produced a given work before relying on the name alone. He has no current commercial gallery or estate representation; works appear mainly through UK auction houses, and public holdings include the National Gallery, Tate, the Government Art Collection, and several regional UK museums. With only a single confirmed public auction result identified in current research, collectors should treat any single sale price with caution and seek independent verification before forming a view of value.