Richard Phelps (artist)

Richard Phelps (1710–1785) was an 18th-century English portrait painter and designer. He painted portraits of gentry, a number of which are in the National Trust, Dunster Castle, University of Oxford, National Portrait Gallery, London, and other museums. The British Museum has an album of 312 of his drawings. Phelps was also a landscape designer, who was hired by Henry Fownes Luttrell to update the grounds of Dunster Castle.

Richard Phelps was from Porlock and married to a woman named Mary. She died on 30 May 1753 and he died 12 July 1785. The couple and other family members are on a brass in Porlock Church. He had land holdings in Porlock, not far from his friend Coplestone Warre Bampfylde's estate, Hestercombe House.

The Phelps family appeared in Porlock during Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603), such as yeoman Robert Phelps who had been in Porlock since about 1602. A Richard Phelps painted the Ten Commandments for the Luccombe Parish Church and the Lord's Prayer for the Porlock Church in 1738.

Phelps was a portrait painter. He studied under Thomas Hudson and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Phelps worked in Somerset painting portraits, restoring old master paintings, and working as an interior decorator. Correspondence by Richard Phelps is held at Penn Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.

Richard Phelps is known for his painting of Bampfylde Moore Carew, which was engraved by Faber. He may have made the pastel work of George Frideric Handel that was exhibited in Paris in 1911. Phelps exhibited in London at The Society of Artists. Phelps was described as a "provincial Highmore" by Sir Ellis Waterhouse.

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