John Astley (painter)

John Astley (24 June 1724 – 14 November 1787) was an English portrait painter and amateur architect, known for his "patronage among a vast circle of fashion" as well as a fortune acquired through marriage.

Born in Wem, Shropshire, England, John Astley was a son of an apothecary, Richard Astley (1671–1754), and his wife, Margaret (1685–1735). Among his siblings was a brother Richard, also a physician, whose estate he inherited.

Due to his good looks, he was known as Beau Astley. Some period sources also call him Jack Astley. A biographer of Sir Joshua Reynolds described Astley as "a gasconading spendthrift and a beau of the flashiest order".

Several jaundiced contemporary accounts of Astley's character exist, notably a lengthy observation by John Williams, (aka Anthony Pasquin), who wrote: "He thought that every advantage in civil society was compounded in women and wine: and, acting up to this principal of bliss, he gave his body to Euphrosyne, and his intellects to madness. He was as ostentatious as the peacock and as amorous as the Persian Sophihe. He would never stir abroad without his bag and his sword; and, when the beauties of Ierne sat to him for their portraits, he would affect to neglect the necessary implements of his art, and use his naked sword as a moll-stick. He had a haram and a bath at the top of his house, replete with every enticement and blandishment to awaken desire; and thus lived, jocund and thoughtless, until his nerves were unstrung by age; when his spirits decayed with his animal powers, and he sighed and drooped into eternity!"

In London, in the 1740s, Astley studied with Joshua Reynolds under the artist Thomas Hudson. He later went to study in Rome and Florence in 1747 (one of his teachers was Pompeo Batoni), before establishing his career during several years in Dublin, Ireland, and afterwards settling in England.

Of his work, the Biographical Dictionary of 1789 said, "The best pictures he ever painted were copies of the Bentivolios, and Titian's Venus ...".Horace Walpole claimed Astley's prominence was based "on the peculiarity of his good fortune, rather than by his exertions as an artist ..." and added that "he estimated his profession only by his gains, and having obtained a fortune, treated all future study with contemptuous neglect". Among Astley's own students was the engraver and historical painter John Keyse Sherwin, while Cheshire portraitist Charles Hoyland, who reportedly studied in Rome with Astley, imitated his style.

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