Richard Phelps (1718-85)

Richard Phelps is little known today but was a prolific portrait painter and a designer of follies in West Somerset. He came from a very modest background but when he died was worth c.£1,500 and left 260 prints, 50 oil paintings, 80 drawings and sketches of his own and nine waste canvases, gold rings, silver plate and a quantity of walnut and mahogany furniture.