1743 (?)-1781) Thomas Watson (British

Thomas Watson kept a pet jackdaw named Caesar that perched on his shoulder while he painted. He once wrote to a friend that he’d rather sketch a bird than a king, which makes his portrait of David Garrick, all powdered curls and theatrical frown, feel like an inside joke. His pastel portraits glow because he mixed sugar into the pigments, giving faces a soft, living sheen you can almost smell. Try his Lady Bampfylde; her flushed cheek looks like she just stepped inside from a London garden.