George Romney was one of the leading artists of late-18th-century England. He worked among an elite circle of British painters, including Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose patrons comprised London’s fashionable society. Romney established his career as a society portrait painter with a style of elegance and informality that won him a prestigious client list.

Rienzi, the MFAH house museum for European decorative arts and paintings, showcases Romney’s work in the exhibition Visions of Fancy. Although Romney (1734–1802) was best known for gorgeous oil paintings, his sketches and drawings reveal the hand of a powerful, sensitive, and innovative draftsman. Alongside examples of portraits, Visions of Fancy features a bound sketchbook showing figures in spontaneous motion on each page.

For more about Romney and Rienzi, visit the Guests from Abroad blog.