Editing Joshua Reynolds (section)

== The Reynolds Research Project ==
In 2010, the [[Wallace Collection]] launched the Reynolds Research Project. With the support of the [[Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art]], and in partnership with the [[National Gallery]] and in collaboration with the [[Yale Center for British Art]], work was undertaken to conserve the museum's portraits to improve their visual appreciation for future generations and to investigate the ways in which they were painted.

The purpose of an exhibition and accompanying catalogue, ''Joshua Reynolds: Experiments in Paint'', 2015, was to share the discoveries of the project and to reveal Reynolds's complex and experimental engagement with painterly materials over the course of his long career. A series of thematic groupings of works from the collection with temporary loans allowed the curators to explore the development of Reynolds's images from both a technical and art historical viewpoint.

As well as exploring his experimentation with materials, the project also revealed the innovative ways in which Reynolds collaborated with his patrons; played with the conventions of genre, composition and pose; engaged with the work of other artists; and organised the submission and display of his work at exhibitions. The commissioning and collecting of Reynolds's work, specifically in the context of the founders of the Wallace Collection (the Seymour-Conway family), was also examined.