LOWELL LIBSON LTD BRITISH ART TEFAF NEW YORK FALL October 28 – November 1, 2017

PARALLEL LINES Contemporary Chinese ink painting and the great age of British Landscape Painters New York, November 13–18, 2017 London, November 30–December 8, 2017

London Art Week Winter November 30–December 8, 2017

TEFAF MAASTRICHT March 10–18, 2018

SALON DU DESSIN Paris, March 21–26, 2018 LOWELL LIBSON LTD 2017 Recent Acquisitions • Autumn 2017 Jonathan Richardson 8 Sir Joshua Reynolds 12 Jean-Étienne Liotard 14 & 18

3 Clifford Street · London w1s 2lf Jacob More 22

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7734 8686 John Hamilton Mortimer 24, 26 & 30 Email: [email protected] John Deare 32 Website: www.lowell-libson.com Pietro Pacilli 36 Lowell Libson Johann Valentin Sonnenschein 40 [email protected] Benjamin West 44 & 46 Jonny Yarker [email protected] Joseph Gott 48

Cressida St Aubyn Johan Zoffany 52 [email protected] Thomas Gainsborough 62 Deborah Greenhalgh Paul Sandby 66 [email protected] Michael Angelo Rooker 70 The gallery is open by appointment, George Richmond 72 Monday to Friday. The entrance is in Old Burlington Street John Martin 74 preface

This catalogue of recent acquisitions appears drawing for his print of The Reviewers’ Cave, somewhat earlier than usual to reflect a two significant drawings by Benjamin West rather busy schedule of activities over the and Richmond’s intensely observed drawing next six months. Two iterations of TEFAF of a woman. in New York and Maastricht, the Salon du Finished works of art include our two Dessin and a long-anticipated exhibition, remarkable portraits by Liotard – in pastel Parallel Lines, a collaboration with my good and oil – representing the high points from friend Marcus Flacks, which explores some each of his two visits to London. A tour of the visual and aesthetic similarities seen de force by the late eighteenth-century in certain Chinese and British drawings. master of terracotta, J. V. Sonnenschein also We have made a number of important demonstrates the expressive capabilities of acquisitions over the last few months, the medium. Further previously unrecorded some of which are included in the present paintings include Jacob More’s perfect catalogue. Although one of our particular view of Ariccia, Mortimer’s impressive interests is landscape painting the present Banditti Fishing and John Martin’s small but selection emphasizes the enduring fascina- monumental treatment of Macbeth and the tion of the human form. Three Witches. The learning process is shown in One of the most exciting revelations of Reynolds’s wonderful transcription of a the last year has been the re-emergence after Guercino drawing, Mortimer’s ‘Academy’ conservation and research of the small scale drawing of a nude and Richardson’s pene- replica of Zoffany’s Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock trating Self-portrait. Match, the masterpiece of his time in India. Preparatory works – the fascinating I am, as ever, absolutely indebted to Jonny process of transforming an idea into a Yarker, my co-director, as well as to Cressida finished statement – are represented, St Aubyn and Deborah Greenhalgh. Without amongst others, by Pacilli’s dynamic them, our various endeavours would simply terracotta of San Camillo de Lellis (detail not happen. We all look forward to seeing opposite); John Deare’s ravishing study for you in the gallery and at our various fairs a marble relief, Mortimer’s highly complex and exhibitions.

Lowell Libson

7 JONATHAN RICHARdSON 1667–1745 Self-Portrait

Oil on canvas most British important art theorist of the 12 ⅜ x 10 ⅞ inches · 315 x 276 mm eighteenth century. Dated ‘Aug / 1733’, lower right Richardson had risen from modest ColleCtIoNs beginnings – he was the son of a London Probably Jonathan Richardson, the Younger silk weaver – to become one of the most (1694–1771); successful portrait painters of his genera- Probably his posthumous sale, Langford tion. His sitters included many luminaries and Son, London, 18th February 1772, lot 45 of the late Stuart and early Georgian era (‘Richardson Senior, His own portrait’); – aristocrats Sir Robert Walpole and Lady James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Mary Wortley Montagu, authors Alexander Dalhousie (1812–60), before 1861; Lady Susan Georgiana Broun Bourke (1837– Pope, Matthew Prior and Sir Richard Steele, 98), by whom brought to Colstoun House, the sculptor Michael Rysbrack, the artist Sir Haddington (according to an old handwritt en James Thornhill and the great physician- label on the reverse); collectors Sir Hans Sloane and Dr Richard By descent in the Broun family at Colstoun Mead. According to his son, Richardson had House to 2017. twice been ‘powerfully invited’ to be the lIteratUre King’s painter, but had refused because of J. Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits. National his ‘aversion to what he called the slavery Portrait Gallery, London 1977, vol.1, pp.228 and of court dependence.’2 He authored the Jonathan Richardson 231, under cat. no.706, reproduced vol.2, plate pioneering Theory of Painting in 1715 and the Self-portrait 674. Two Discourses in 1719 and was a director, Black and red chalk touched with white on blue paper from its foundation, of the Great Queen 15 ⅞ x 11 ⅞ inches · 405 x 301 mm This important, fi nely painted self-portrait Street Academy. On Richardson’s death in Dated ’30 Aug. 1733’ © The Trustees of the British Museum was made by Jonathan Richardson towards 1745, the chronicler of the early Georgian art the end of his life. From 1728, until his world, George Vertue remarked that: ‘this death in 1745, Richardson undertook a was the last of the Eminent old painters. concerted campaign of self-portraiture. It that had been contemporyes in Reputation – was not until the sale of the collection of Kneller Dahl Jarvis & Richardson for portrait Richardson, the Younger in 1772 that the painting.’3 extent of his activities as a self-portraitist As Susan Owens has pointed out in the were revealed, prompting the writer Horace recent exhibition devoted to Richardson’s Walpole to observe that: ‘after his retirement self-portraiture, he only began to produce from business, the good old man seems to studies of himself in around 1728.4 Made have amused himself with writing a short during his semi-retirement, Richardson’s poem, and drawing his own or son’s portrait self-portraits constitute one of the most every day.’1 Whilst numerous drawings extraordinary projects of self-depiction survive, Richardson produced very few undertaken in early modern Britain. The painted self-portraits, of which this is one present oil portrait sits neatly within the of the most impressive. Painted on an sequence. Made on a small scale, Richardson intimate scale, this portrait is a remarkably depicts himself, as he frequently did without lively and penetrating depiction of the wig, wearing a cap.There is much evidence

8 to suggest that his self-portraiture was a Notes private, meditative process of self-scrutiny and 1. Quoted in Susan Owens, Jonathan as such Richardson frequently depicted himself Richardson: By Himself, exh. cat. London with informal ease. The painting, like the draw- (The Courtauld Gallery), 2015, pp.9–10. 2. Jonathan Richardson, Morning Thoughts, ings, is closely observed and fi nely painted, London, 1776, p.281. the scale further points to its place within the 3. G. Vertue, eds. L. Cust and A. Hind, ‘The drawn sequence. Notebooks of George Vertue’, The Walpole Carol Gibson-Wood has observed that Society, London, 1929–47, III, p.125. 4. Susan Owens, Jonathan Richardson By Richardson’s self-portraiture was a way of Himself, exh. cat., London (Courtauld ‘manifesting that self-analytic process which Gallery), 2015, pp.9–18. he associated with the attainment of virtue.’5 5. Carol Gibson-Wood, Jonathan Richardson: Gibson-Wood points to the parallel with Art Theorist of the English Enlightenment, Richardson’s own poetry, which he produced New Haven and London, 2000, pp.134–135. 6. Jonathan Richardson, Morning Thoughts, continuously during his retirement. In a poem London, 1776, pp.132–3. of 1736 entitled ‘A Better Picture’ he actually 7. Quoted in Carol Gibson-Wood, Jonathan describes the painting of a self-portrait as a Richardson: Art Theorist of the English Jonathan Richardson metaphor for the process of self-improvement.6 Enlightenment, New Haven and London, 2000, p.127. Self-portrait, c.1729 It is clear that Richardson thought of the Oil on canvas twin activities of poetry and self-portraiture 29 x 24 ¾ inches · 737 x 629 mm © National Portrait Gallery, London as both analogous and complementary. In the introduction of Morning Thoughts, Richardson explained: I wake early, think; dress me, think; come back to my chamber, think; and as I allow no thoughts unworthy to be written, I write. Thus verse is grown habitual to me. I pretend, however, to no fi nished poetry, no nice correction they are works of another kind, like sketches in drawing.7 It is clear also, given his collecting, that Richardson must have been conscious of the great series of self-portraits produced by earlier artists, such as Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Titian and others. A larger, less incisive or carefully executed self-portrait survives in the National Portrait Gallery, London and seems likely to have been a scaled up copy of the present study. This inti- mate painted portrait is likely to have remained in the collection of Richardson’s son, Jonathan Richardson, the Younger, and was probably included in his posthumous sale.

10 11 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLdS PRA 1723–1792 SeateD Youth, after GuerCino

Pen and brown ink on buff paper neighbour, James Bulteel, concerning his 10 x 7 ½ inches · 254 x 197 mm son’s career prospects. Bulteel suggested Drawn c.1740 that Joshua should go to London, offering ColleCtIoNs to introduce him personally to ‘those in Agnew’s, London; artistic circles.’2 In the Spring of 1740, it was John Nicholas Brown, Providence, Rhode Island, agreed that Reynolds should be bound to 1942; Hudson for a period of four years. Reynolds’s David Tunick, New York; routine would involve running errands, Private Collection, Usa to 2017. preparing canvases, painting accessories in eXHIBIted portraits, and perhaps even making replicas Omaha, Society of Liberal Arts, Joslyn Memorial, of Hudson’s pictures. He also made drawings 1942, no.97, (loaned by John Nicholas Brown); from casts of antique statuary. Rhode Island School of Design, Providence The present drawing is a close copy of a (according to old label); sheet by Guercino, formerly in the collection Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge (according to old label). of Denis Mahon and now in the Ashmoleon Museum. The drawing originally formed This bold and incisive drawing was made part of the substantial group of works by by Joshua Reynolds at the beginning of his Guercino which had been acquired in Italy Il Guercino (1591–1666) Seated youth, turned artistic career, whilst he was working in the from Guercino’s descendants by an English away with left hand raised and resting on a piece of paper hanging on the right, 1635–50 studio of Thomas Hudson. As such, it is a traveller, John Bouverie. This sheet therefore Pen and dark brown ink · 9 ⅛ x 6 ⅞ inches · 232 x 175 mm rare instance of the drawings Reynolds made offers evidence that Bouverie’s drawings © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford during his short apprenticeship whilst he were available for study by collectors and was learning his trade as a painter. Hudson artists in London in the 1740s. combined with wash are close to the proto- had a large and important collection of Reynolds’s early biographer, his student, type.4 The drawing is richly inked and rapidly drawings, many of them acquired from his James Northcote was dismissive of drawn, preserving to a very great degree the father-in-law Jonathan Richardson. This Reynolds’s early training: force and spontaneity of the original sheet. beautiful sheet proves that they had a practi- instead of directing him to study from the antique As a rare survival of Reynolds’s celebrated cal application, being used by his students to models, he recommended to him the careful Guercino copies, this drawing is both learn to draw. copying of Guercino’s drawings, thus trifl ing important evidence of his early training and Reynolds was born in Plymouth, where his time away; this instance served to shew the a spirited and intelligent work by Britain’s his father was a schoolmaster. He received deplorable state of the arts at that time in this leading painter of the eighteenth century. a broad education and his commonplace country: however, the youthful and tractable pupil Notes book at Yale contains passages copied from executed his task with such skill, that many of these classical authors as well as extracts from early productions are now preserved in the cabinets 1. J. Edgcumbe, ‘Reynolds’s earliest drawings’, Burlington Magazine, vol. 129, 1987, p.724–6. the writings on art theory by da Vinci, Du of the curious in this kingdom; most of which 2. D. Hudson, Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Personal Fresnoy, and Félibien. Reynolds began his are actually considered as masterly originals by Study, London, 1958, p.14. artistic studies by copying including several Guercino himself.3 3. J. Northcote, The Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, accurate reproductions of frontispieces in The present sheet demonstrates how London, 1819, v.l, p.18. 4. For several of Reynolds’s drawings aft er Guercino, books, several of which have survived. successfully Reynolds was at manufacturing 1 ed. Sam Smiles, Sir Joshua Reynolds; The In 1738, when Reynolds was fourteen, his Guercino’s technical mannerisms; the use Acquisition of Genius, Bristol, exh. cat. (Plymouth father entered into correspondence with a of dots, dashes and more sculptural lines Art Gallery), 2009, cat. nos. 80 and 81.

12 JEAN-ÉTIENNE LIOTARd 1702–1789

William PonSonBY, 2nD earl of BeSSBorouGh

Pastel on vellum This powerful portrait was made by Jean- and resulted in productive and fi nancial 24 ⅜ x 19 ½ inches · 620 x 495 mm Étienne Liotard whilst he was in London successful stints in Moldavia and Vienna, Drawn 1754 in 1754, it depicts Liotard’s most signifi cant where he worked for the Empress Maria In the original frame British client, the collector and politician, Theresa. It has long been assumed that it ColleCtIoNs William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough. was Bessborough who persuaded Liotard Commissioned by the sitt er; Conceived in a distinctive, classical style, to visit London in 1753, although it now Princess Amelia (1711–1786), a gift from the Liotard shows Bessborough in profi le seems likely to have been Sir Everard sitt er; wearing a toga, perhaps as an allusion to his Fawkener who had become secretary to William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, 3rd Duke activities as a major collector of antiquities the Duke of Cumberland on his return of Portland, bequeathed by the above, 1786 and antique gems. Apparently commis- from Constantinople. (inscribed on a label on the original backboard, now lost: When HRH The Princess Amelia sioned by Bessborough who gave it to In London Liotard renewed his friend- Dyes, this Picture is to be given to the Duke of Princess Amelia, daughter of George II; she ship with Bessborough. In 1739 Bessborough Portland); in turn left it to William Henry Cavendish – then Viscount Duncannon – had married By descent at Welbeck Abbey to 2017. Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland. It has Lady Caroline Cavendish, eldest daughter lIteratUre remained at Welbeck Abbey ever since. of the 3rd Duke of Devonshire. Devonshire Charles Fairfax Murray, Catalogue of the Executed in pastel on vellum, this portrait was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and his son- pictures belonging to His Grace The Duke of is one of the most striking and remarkable in-law acted as his advisor. With an Irish Portland, at Welbeck Abbey, and in London, produced by Liotard during his fi rst visit peerage and Irish estates, Bessborough was 1894, no.366; to London. Its unusual conception points initially active principally in Irish politics Edouard Humbert, Alphonse Revilliod, Jan to the intimacy between the artist and but from 1742 he was MP for Derby and Willem Tilanus, La Vie et les Oeuvres de Jean- sitter and raises important questions about through Devonshire attained a series of key Étienne Liotard, Amsterdam, 1897, no.27; Liotard’s portrait practice during the 1750s. political appointments: commissioner of François Fosca, Liotard, Paris, 1928, p.151; An advertisment appeared in a London the Admiralty and admiral of Munster, Lord Numa Trivias, unpublished ms. monograph and catalogue of Liotard’s works, 1936, Musée d’art newspaper in March 1753 announcing that: of the Treasury and from 1758, following et d’histoire, Geneva no 78a; This Week a Turkish Gentleman, lately arrived his father’s death, joint postmaster-general. Richard W. Goulding and C.K. Adams, here, who is very eminent in Portrait Painting, Bessborough combined politics with artistic Catalogue of the Pictures Belonging to His and known to Sir Everard Faulkner [sic.] in Turky, patronage assembling a large and notable Grace the Duke of Portland KG at Welbeck was introduced to his Royal Highness the Duke of collection of antiquities and antique gems. Abbey, 17 Hill Street, London, and Langwell Cumberland, and very graciously received. This It is in the dual context of Whig politics House, 1936, no.366; gentleman is dressed in the Habit of his Country, and collecting that Liotard’s remarkable Renée Loche and Marcel Roethlisberger, and remarkable by his Beard being long, curiously pastel portrait should be read. Bessborough’s L’opera completa di Liotard, Milan, 1978, no.169, repr.; shaped and curled.1 interest in antique gems possibly stemmed Renée Loche and Marcel Roethlisberger, The ‘Turkish Gentleman’ was in fact from his relationship with the Devonshires. Liotard, Catalogue Sources et Correspondence, Liotard, who had adopted Turkish costume The 3rd Duke’s father, William Cavendish, Doornspijk, 2008, vol.I, pp.446–447, no.274, and grown a beard following four years 2nd Duke of Devonshire was a hugely vol.II, fi g.406. spent in Constantinople. Liotard had visited celebrated collector of gems and the 3rd Turkey fi rst in the company of Bessborough Duke showed evident interest in the collec- and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich tion.2 Around 1754 Bessborough acquired whom he had met in Italy in 1738. Liotard’s sixty gems from Philip Dormer Stanhope, adoption of beard and Turkish costume had 4th Earl of Chesterfi eld, who had, in turn, become a powerful advertising gimmick been bequeathed them by his brother John

14 Stanhope. This group contained some very At around the same date Liotard played a examination of a cameo. The relief of Notes considerable gems, including a remark- similar antiquarian game with his portrait Bessborough’s profile is also shown casting 1. Old England’s Journal, 31 March, 1753, quoted able intaglio depicting Sirius now in the of Sir Everard Fawkener, where, in a pastel a subtle shadow on the dark background, in: William Hauptman, ‘British Royal and Society Portraits’, Jean-Étienne Liotard, exh. cat., London Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.3 At the same portrait on vellum, dated 1754, he shows in precisely the way shadow falls on the (Royal Academy of Arts), 2015, p.93, n.18. date Bessborough is recorded acquiring Fawkener in profile, as if carved in relief. ground stratum of a carved gem. 2. The 3rd Duke commissioned Lorenz Natter to gems from the collections of the physician But for the celebrated collector Bessborough, Bessborough was to go on to become complete a catalogue of the gems at Chatsworth Richard Mead, including a large cameo of Liotard goes further, showing him in a toga, Liotard’s most important patron, acquiring see Julia Kagan and Oleg Neverov, ‘Lorenz the head of Medusa (collection: National in conscious emulation of one of his own more than seventy of his works during his Natter’s Museum Britannicum~: gem collecting in mid-Eighteenth-Century England’ Apollo, Museums Liverpool) and George Montagu, gems. This was a mode which contemporar- lifetime, including the famous Déjeuner vol.120, 1984, p.116. 2nd Earl of Halifax.4 Bessborough had also ies would readily have understood and Lavergne of 1754 (Private collection) for 3. John Boardman, The Marlborough Gems, Oxford, become acquainted with the gem engraver appreciated. Indeed, Liotard may in fact have which he paid the enormous sum of 2009, cat.no.293, p.137. and antiquarian Lorenz Natter who known a cameo portrait of Bessborough 200 guineas.6 Amongst Bessborough’s 4. John Boardman, The Marlborough Gems, Oxford, compiled a catalogue of both the Devonshire carved in around 1750 by Lorenz Natter, commissions was a portrait of Princess 2009, cat.no.361, p.165. 5. Julia Kagan and Oleg Neverov, ‘Lorenz Natter’s collection of gems at Chatsworth and and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Amelia. The pastel portrait, which remains Museum Britannicum~: gem collecting in mid- Bessborough’s collection, which was eventu- Art, New York which shows Bessborough in with Bessborough’s descendants, was Eighteenth-Century England’ Apollo, vol.120, ally published in 1761.5 Bessborough sold his precisely the same guise: wearing cropped possibly conceived as a pendant to the 1984, pp.116–121. gems shortly afterwards to George Spencer, hair, in a neo-Roman style. present portrait. Princess Amelia is shown 6. Renée Loche and Marcel Roethlisberger, Liotard, Catalogue Sources et Correspondence, 4th Duke of Marlborough for the consider- The portrait suggests that Liotard had unconventionally in stark profile, with a Jean-Étienne Liotard Jean-Étienne Liotard Princess Amelia of Hanover, 1754 Sir Everard Fawkener, 1754 Doornspijk, 2008, I. cat. no.299, pp.464–467. able sum of £5,000. spent time with Bessborough’s gems. rope of pearls threaded through her hair, 7. Renée Loche and Marcel Roethlisberger, Pastel on paper Pastel on vellum It was therefore natural for Liotard in He shows Bessborough’s features care- a pose again suggestive of antique gems.7 Liotard, Catalogue Sources et Correspondence, 24 ½ x 21 inches · 622 x 534 mm 15 ½ x 13 ¼ inches · 392 x 336 mm 1759 to depict Bessborough in the guise of an fully modulated in shadow, a sophisticated Bessborough was close to Princess Amelia, Stansted Park Foundation © Victoria and Albert Museum, London Doornspijk, 2008, I. cat. no.276, pp.447–448. antique cameo, shown bust-length in profile. compositional device which recalls careful in 1762 he acted as her trustee in the 8. Renée Loche and Marcel Roethlisberger, Liotard, Catalogue Sources et Correspondence, purchase of the Gunnersbury estate and Indeed Bessborough’s pastel is preserved in Doornspijk, 2008,cat. no.275, p.447. eventually acted as one of her executors its original carved, English frame, a varia- 9. Jaynie Anderson, ‘A Letter from Liotard to the 2nd when she died. It is not clear at what date tion on a Carlo Maratta type, which Liotard Earl of Bessborough in 1763’, The Burlington Bessborough gave the present portrait to seems to have preferred for portraits from Magazine, vol.136, no.1090, January 1994, pp.23–25. Princess Amelia, but it was evidently in her his first British period. possession at her death in 1786. An exceptional image of Liotard’s Liotard remained in contact with outstanding patron, made during his Bessborough throughout his career. He highly productive first sojourn in London, produced a replica of his profile portrait this pastel is a remarkable survival. The of Bessborough, which he retained and portrait commemorates not only Liotard’s which descended through his family, before most consistent supporter, but one of the entering the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam most important collectors of antique gems in 1873.8 Executed on paper rather than in the middle of the eighteenth century. vellum, the Rijksmuseum version is cruder Conceptualised as a carved gem, Liotard’s and less subtle in its execution than the portrait of Bessborough can be viewed as present portrait. A rare letter from Liotard remarkable piece of proto-neoclassicism. to Bessborough preserved amongst the Bessborough family papers, gives an insight Jean-Étienne Liotard William Ponsonby, Johann Lorenz Natter William Ponsonby, John Singleton Copley Viscount Duncannon, later 2nd Earl of Viscount Duncannon, later 2nd Earl of William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough into their relationship.Liotard writes osten- Bessborough, 1750–60 Bessborough, 1750 Oil on canvas · 23 ¼ x 19 ¼ inches · 591 x 489 mm sibly to introduce another Genevan artist, Pastel on paper · 23 ⅝ x 18 ⅞ inches · 600 x 480 mm Onyx, mounted as a gold pendant Signed and dated 1790 M. Jurine, who he advertised as an expert Inscribed: ‘Milord Besborough ami de & peint par 1 x ⅞ inches · 26 x 23 mm, overall Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, at fixing pastels.9 It is therefore likely that Liotard’ The Milton Weil Collection, 1939 Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop, 1943.129 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, © 2017 The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of the present portrait was unfixed and Liotard bequeathed by Miss Marie-Anne Liotard Scala, Florence Harvard College relied on glazing to protect the surface.

16 17 JEAN-ÉTIENNE LIOTARd 1702–1789 franCiS oWen

Oil on canvas, unlined This grand and imposing portrait of Francis 50 x 40 inches · 1270 x 1016 mm Owen is widely considered the masterpiece Signed and dated ‘J.e. lIotard/1773’, of Jean-Étienne Liotard’s second London on plinth, centre right period. Painted in 1773 on an unusually In the original neoclassical frame large scale, the portrait is executed in oil, ColleCtIoNs a medium rare in Liotard’s oeuvre, yet it is The sitt er; handled with all the minute sophistication, Margaret Owen, the sitt er’s sister and heir, compositional innovation and psychological who married Owen Ormsby in 1777; power he generally reserved for his works in Mary Jane Ormsby, daughter and heir of the pastel. The portrait shows the young land- above, who married in 1815 William Gore (later owner, Francis Owen in seventeenth-century Ormsby-Gore); costume, displaying Liotard’s awareness of John Ralph Ormsby-Gore, son of the above, fashionable British ‘Grand Manner’ portrai- created 1st Baron Harlech in 1876; By descent; ture at precisely the moment he was entering Francis David Ormsby-Gore, 6th Baron Harlech, his own pictures for exhibition at the newly Glyn Cywarch, to 2017. founded Royal Academy. The sitter died within a year of the painting’s completion, it lIteratUre passed to his sister, and has remained with Portraits from Welsh Houses, exh. cat., Cardiff , her descendants in Wales since 1777. 1948, pp.24–25, cat. no.55, repr.; François Fosca, La Vie, les voyages et les oeuvres de Jean Etienne Liotard, Lausanne, 1956, p.101; John Steegman, A Survey of Portraits in Welsh Houses, Cardiff , 1957, vol.I, p.73, no.38, ill., pl.11B (under Portraits formerly at Brogyntyn); J. L. Nevinson, ‘Vandyke Dress’, The Connoisseur, November 1964, p.171, repr.; Renée Loche and Marcel Roethlisberger, L’opera completa di Liotard, Milan, 1978, no.297, repr.; Aileen Ribeiro, The dress worn at masquerades in England, 1730 to 1790, and its relation to fancy dress in portraiture, New York, 1984, p.201; Marcel Roethlisberger and Renée Loche, Liotard, Catalogue Sources et Correspondence, Doornspijk, 2008, vol.I, pp.615–6, no.487, vol. II, fi g.692.

eXHIBIted Cornelius Vermeulen, aft er Anthony van Dyck Cardiff , National Museum of Wales, Portraits Dominus Nicolaus van der Borght, 1703 from Welsh Houses, June–July 1948, cat. no.55 Engraving · 19 ¾ x 13 ⅞ inches · 503 x 353 mm (as by J.E. Liotard). © The Trustees of the British Museum

18 Liotard was already well known when Liotard also established a successful in Paris.6 Like Bessborough, Clanbrassil had completed his full-length portrait of the Vermeulen’s depiction of van der Borght’s and Loche in 2008 who praised the portrait, he visited Britain for the second time in portrait practice. His sitters included a political career in Britain as well as Ireland, Welsh landowner, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn cloak precisely. The source for Owen’s pose noting: 1772, at the age of 71. Matthew Pilkington, members of the Ponsonby family and their sitting as MP for Helston in Cornwall. This and his first wife, Lady Henrietta Somerset, has not previously been noted and it offers Ce portrait, cite pour la première fois en 1948, writing in The Gentleman’s and Connoisseur’s relations. Liotard had first met William may explain how Francis Owen came to sit now in the National Museum of Wales, a new perspective on Liotard’s inventive use inconnu du public, d’une conservation parfait, Dictionary of Painters in 1770, commented Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough in to Liotard at the same date. Cardiff, in which he showed the sitters in of prints. If, as Roethlisberger and Loche s’impose comme une des oeuvres les plus that Liotard’s portraits showed: ‘astonishing Italy in the 1730s before travelling with Clanbrassil had been returned for the seventeenth-century masquerade costume, suggest, Liotard based Owen’s face on a étonnantes de Liotard. Parmi la petite douzaine force, and beauty of tint; with a striking him to Constantinople. In 1773 Liotard constituency of Helston in 1768 on the complete with masks. Williams Wynn miniature portrait by Richard Crosse, the de portraits documentés de ce séjour anglais, il resemblance of his models; a remarkable produced a portrait of his sons Frederick, interest of Francis, 2nd Lord Godolphin had constructed a theatre at his house, portrait can be viewed as a sophisticated act est de loin le plus ambitieux, le seul en costume roundness and relief; and an exact imita- Viscount Duncannon, William and whose first wife, Lady Barbara Bentinck, Wynnstay, where there were regular of visual synthesis. historique avec mise en scène monumentale, le tion of life and nature in all the subjects he George Ponsonby.4 The sensitive portrait was a sister of Clanbrassil’s mother. amateur theatricals. It is perhaps significant Unlike Liotard’s other British portraits seul peint à l’huile, et un des plus grands formats painted.’1 Liotard was sufficiently respected of Viscount Duncannon was exhibited Clanbrassil was forced to make way in 1774 to note that Wynn was a close neighbour of the period, which were largely executed de l’artiste (moins grand toutefois que les portraits to be approached by the Society of Arts in by Liotard at the Royal Academy in 1773 for Francis Godolphin Osborne, Marquess of of the Owens, who lived less than ten miles in pastel, his portrait of Owen is executed en pied de Constantinople).9 November 1772 to give an opinion on the along with a now missing portrait of his Carmarthen and later 5th Duke of Leeds, the away at Brogyntyn, and there is evidence in oil on canvas. Liotard worked consist- quality of crayons submitted by Charles tutor, Dr Samuel Wells Thomson. Liotard grandson of Francis, 2nd Earl of Godolphin. that young Francis attended theatricals at ently in oil throughout his career, with a Pache. Liotard provided the Society with a produced two portraits of another Irish peer, Helston returned two MPs for the Godolphin Wynnstay.8 series of notable canvases produced around certificate declaring that ‘the crayons of Mr James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Clanbrassil interest and in 1774 the second was Francis Reynolds’s portrait of Lord Robert Spencer 1770. In 1774, the year after he completed Pache are as good as those of Stoupan, and and his wife, Grace Foley. Clanbrassil and Owen. Owen was himself a member of sets an even closer precedent for Liotard’s the portrait of Owen, Liotard showed a that the dark Browns are rather more beauti- Bessborough were both members of the the Godolphin family, his mother, Mary, depiction of Owen; Reynolds shows Spencer genre scene La Beurrée and a self-portrait ful.’2 As Neil Jeffares has established, Liotard Society of Dilettanti, friends and political was Francis, 2nd Lord Godolphin’s sister, in a theatrical red cloak, doublet with at the Royal Academy, both were executed probably lodged at 50 Great Marlborough allies.5 Surviving correspondence also making Clanbrassil’s mother Owen’s aunt slashed sleeves, ruff and velvet breeches, in oil. What makes Liotard’s portrait of Street where he opened a public exhibition shows that Clanbrassil acted as an agent for by marriage. The two MPs for Helston, sword at his side and holding a mask. Francis Owen particularly important is of his collection of Old Masters and own Bessborough purchasing antiquities, gems Clanbrassil and Owen, both therefore sat to Liotard omits the more obviously theatrical its scale and technical ambition as well as Notes work in 1773.3 and books for Bessborough whilst resident Liotard within months of each other and it props of mask and sword, but shows Owen its extraordinary state of preservation, it 1. Matthew Pilkington, The Gentleman’s and is likely that Clanbrassil introduced Owen in billowing cloak, doublet with slashed remains unlined. Liotard has attempted Connoisseurs Dictionary of Painters, London, to Liotard. sleeves ruff and velvet breeches. Liotard to capture the facture, lustre and palette 1779,p.351. 2. Quoted in Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists Francis Owen was born in 1745 the son also dresses the portrait with drapery and of a pastel portrait in oil. As with his most before 1800, online edition. of William Owen, a wealthy landowner column suggesting that he was attempting successful pastels, Liotard has used areas of 3. Quoted in Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists from Brogyntyn, or Porkington in Selatyn, to appropriate the language of Baroque bright local colour, in the case of Owen, the before 1800 online edition. Shropshire. He was educated at Eton, where portraiture, rather than depict Owen in rich golden ochre of the doublet. Similarly 4. See Marcel Roethlisberger and Renée Loche, his grandfather, the Rev. Henry Godolphin accurate masquerade costume. Liotard has attempted to suggest a range of Liotard, Catalogue Sources et Correspondence, Doornspijk, 2008, vol.I, cat. no’s. 496, 497 and had been Provost, and at Pembroke College, Liotard seems to have had a model by textures, from the diamond buttons, to the 498, pp.622–623. Oxford. In 1773 he was a wealthy and eligible Van Dyck in mind for the pose itself. Owen dark blue velvet of Owen’s breeches. Owen’s 5. For Clanbrassil’s correspondence with young man on the brink of a political career. is shown with his right hand on his hip face is modelled with a careful cast shadow Bessborough see: Bessborough Papers, file.77, Liotard’s portrait shows him in a fashion- and left hand pointing down in a distinc- and minute brushwork, handling which 2nd Earl’s correspondence with Lord Clanbrassil. 6. See Rachel Finnegan, ‘The Classical Taste of able guise, dressed in seventeenth-century tive gesture. This formation is borrowed immediately recalls Liotard’s most success- William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough’, in costume. At this date ‘Van Dyck’ costume from Van Dyck’s portrait of Nicolaes van ful pastel portraits of the period. Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies: The was a highly popular mode for patrician der Borght in reverse. Liotard is unlikely Shortly after the portrait was delivered, Journal of the Irish Georgian Society, 2005, vol.8, portraiture. As William Hauptman has to have known the portrait itself, which and before Owen could have a chance to pp.12–43. pointed out, Liotard profited from the was in Antwerp, but probably knew the take up his seat in parliament, he was killed 7. William Hauptman, ‘British Royal and Society Portraits’, in eds. Christopher Baker, William artistic opportunities available to him in engraving by Cornelis Vermeulen engraved by the fall of a bridge over which he was Hauptman, MaryAnne Stevens et al., Jean- London during the 1770s, exhibiting works in reverse in 1703. Vermeulen’s print not riding. The portrait passed to his sister, Etienne Liotard 1702–1789, exh. cat., Edinburgh Jean-Étienne Liotard Sir Joshua Reynolds at the recently founded Royal Academy and only provides the model for Owen’s left Margaret, who married Owen Ormsby (National Galleries of Scotland), 2015, p.101. Self-portrait laughing, c.1770 Lord Robert Spencer selling paintings at Christie’s.7 Liotard would hand and lace cuff, but it also provides in 1777 and remained with their descend- 8. National Library of Wales, Brogyntyn Estate and Family Records, PEC5/7/67. Oil on canvas Oil on canvas · 40 x 50 inches · 1016 x 1270 mm undoubtedly have seen portraits where the the design of his doublet, with bows and ants until 2017. Despite being exhibited in 33 x 29 ⅛ inches · 840 x 740 mm Signed and dated 1769 9. Marcel Roethlisberger and Renée Loche, © Musée d’art et d’histoire, Ville de Genève Woolbeding Gardens, West Sussex sitters were posed in seventeenth-century buttons, the ruff and even the fall of the Cardiff in 1948, it remained in comparative Liotard, Catalogue Sources et Correspondence, Photo: Bettina Jacot-Descombes © National Trust costume. Joshua Reynolds had recently cloak; Liotard has followed the highlights in obscurity until published by Roethlisberger Doornspijk, 2008, vol.I, pp.615–6, no.487.

20 21 JACOb MORE 1740–1793 ariCCia

Oil on copper Castelli Romani, the towns to the southeast drawings of trees. More shows the town 12 inches · 305 mm, diameter of Rome that had long been a favoured site rising above a line of trees, the knotted Signed, inscribed and dated ‘Jacob More, for British artists. The neighbouring towns roots of a chestnut tree visible on the right Roma 1778’, lower left of Albano and Nemi, with their respective of the composition. The present work has This previously unrecorded painting was volcanic lakes were hugely popular subjects not previously been recorded, but we know made by Jacob More in Italy in 1778. Executed amongst British painters. More’s view is More produced other views of Ariccia. More on copper, it is an exquisite cabinet painting taken from the valley below the town, look- is recorded as having executed a watercol- almost certainly made for the tourist market, ing up to the north; on the left the hulking our ‘View in the Chigi Park at Ariccia’ for capturing a familiar view of the Roman mass of the Palazzo Chigi is visible with Lord Grey de Wilton in 1787.1 Campagna in a distinctly Claudian manner. the elegant dome of the church of S. Maria More’s success and status were More was one of the most successful British Assunta on the right. More’s view shows recognised in 1781 with his election to the landscape painters resident in Rome during the church bell towers with their recently Accademia di San Luca, Rome, followed the second half of the eighteenth century completed canopies, added as part of the by the invitation to present his Self-Portrait and his work was in high demand amongst restoration of 1771. Richard Wilson seems to the Uffi zi Gallery, Florence, in 1784. Sir wealthy visitors to the city, the present tondo to have been the fi rst British artist to have Joshua Reynolds referred to More as the is a quintessential Grand Tour souvenir. made a drawing of this view, but it was ‘best painter of air since Claude’ and Goethe More was born in Edinburgh where he popular amongst More’s contemporaries in bestowed praises on his work on visiting his was fi rst apprenticed to a goldsmith and Rome. John ‘Warwick’ Smith made a draw- studio in 1787.2 His work commanded high then, from 1764, to the Norie family of ing from the same position, as did Francis prices and he enjoyed a full order book—in housepainters. Alexander Runciman became Towne, who was in Italy in 1779–1780. 1785 he had a two-year waiting list of orders, More’s master on Norie’s death in 1766. In the The present attractive roundel, suffused mainly from British patrons—but he chose 1760s he produced numerous sketches of the with Claudian light, distils the British inter- to work increasingly as an agent and dealer. Scottish lowlands and in 1769 he designed est in the landscape of the Castelli Romani. and executed stage sets at the Theatre Royal, Much of the land round Rome was defor- Notes Edinburgh, for the fi rst productions after the ested, but in the lushly vegetated grounds of 1. Patricia R. Andrew, ‘Jacob More: Biography and a legalising of the theatre in Scotland. Palazzo Chigi artists found an abundance of Checklist of Works’, The Walpole Society, vol.55, 198₉⁄₉₀, Cat. no.B.7.vII, p.172. By 1773 More was in Rome, where he trees and bosky views. The portrait painter 2. J. W. Goethe, Italian journey, 1786–1788, quickly established his reputation as the John Downman, who was in Italy in 1774, trans. W. H. Auden and E. Mayer, London, 1962, leading landscape painter of the thriving spent time in the Chigi park making careful pp.356–357. colony of British artists. He produced increasingly large Italianate landscapes with an acknowledged debt to Richard Wilson and Claude Lorrain. More travelled widely in Italy on sketching trips and his numerous plein air sketches reveal a light, rapid touch. The present beautifully worked tondo was painted by More in Rome, almost certainly for the Grand Tour market. The view was a Richard Wilson Ariccia, c.1754–6 familiar one to British travellers, depicting Chalk and pencil the town of Ariccia from the lushly vegetated 12 ⅝ x 17 ⅝ inches · 322 x 447 mm park of Palazzo Chigi. Ariccia was one of the © Tate, London 2017

22 JOHN HAMILTON MORTIMER 1740–1779 BanDitti fiShinG

Oil on canvas exhibited by Mortimer at the Society of 30 x 25 inches · 762 x 635 mm Arts in 1777.2 The present work differs from Painted 1777 the Payne Knight version; in it Mortimer ColleCtIoNs has added the fi gure of a woman in the Private collection, Germany, to 2016. background, based on Guercino’s Persian Sibyl. Beautifully painted and preserved in John Hamilton Mortimer was known in his outstanding condition, the painting is an own lifetime as the ‘English Salvator’ and important addition to Mortimer’s oeuvre. consciously modelled his life and works The appeal of banditti as a subject-matter on the seventeenth-century Italian painter, is attested to by the volume of paintings, Salvator Rosa. This previously unpub- drawings and etchings of this sort exhibited lished painting eloquently demonstrates by Mortimer during the 1770s. Far more Mortimer’s debt to Rosa. In its precision numerous than his named history paintings, and delicacy of handling, as well as in the non-descript compositions fueled the its elegant composition, this impressive imagination of early Romantic audiences; painting demonstrates Mortimer’s abilities whilst the very real fear of encountering as a painter. outlaws whilst travelling in Italy, and Salvator Rosa had a remarkable impact even Britain, infl ected them with a sense upon British painters during the eighteenth of sublimity. century, in terms of both his life and work. Biographers routinely cast Rosa as an outlaw, who had fought in the rebellion led by the Neapolitan fi sherman Masaniello against Spanish rule in 1647. William Gilpin writing in 1768 observed: ‘we are told, he spent the early part of his life in a troop of banditti; and that the rocky and desolate scenes, in which he was accustomed to take refuge, furnished him with those romantic ideas in landskip, of which he is exceedingly fond…His Robbers, as his detached fi gures are commonly called [the Figurine series], are supposed also to have been taken from life.’1 Mortimer has encapsulated the idea of outlaw fi shermen in the present painting; a group of armed banditti stand around Notes contemplating their catch recalling the 1. William Gilpin, Essay Upon Prints, London, 1768, stories of Rosa and Masaniello. The present p.83. 2. See John Sutherland, ‘John Hamilton Mortimer: composition is known in at least two His Life and Works’, The Walpole Society, vol.52, versions. The fi rst was probably commis- 1986, cat. no.124, p.177 (formerly in the Pepper sioned by Richard Payne Knight and was collection).

24 JOHN HAMILTON MORTIMER 1740–1779 the revieWerS’ Cave

Pen and grey ink This important, previously unrecorded 11 ½ x 14 ¼ inches · 290 x 362 mm drawing was made by John Hamilton Inscribed ‘Mortimer’, lower left Mortimer in preparation for his engraved Drawn 1765 frontispiece to Evan Lloyd’s The Powers of the ColleCtIoNs Pen: A Poem which was published in 1768. Probably Sir William Forbes 7th Bt. of Pitt sligo Lloyd was a Welsh cleric and poet who (1773–1828); produced a number of polemics; The Powers thence by descent at Fett ercairn House, of the Pen was a substantial verse satire writ- Kincardineshire to 2017. ten in octosyllabic couplets which attacked lIteratUre contemporary literary critics. Mortimer’s for the print only. John Sutherland, ‘John rapidly worked compositional study is Hamilton Mortimer; his Life and Works’, The the only known drawing relating to the Walpole Society, vol.52, 1988, cat. no.20, p.127. frontispiece which appeared with the title The Reviewers Cave. A grand literary satire, Mortimer’s composition takes the form of a sophisticated attack on contemporary authors, particularly popular critics such as Samuel Johnson and William Warburton. The drawing shows the fi gure of the Genius of Dullness asleep above an assembly of authors. As Philip Smallwood has pointed out, Mortimer has drawn explicitly on imagery from Pope, both the Dunciad and the ‘Cave of Spleen’ from the Rape of the Lock. Mortimer shows a basket of contemporary books being brought before the reviewers’ court.1 The judge seated third from the centre is easily identifi able as Samuel Johnson, who is directly attacked by Lloyd for his edition of Shakespeare. Lloyd criticised it for its ‘Brobdingnag words’ and pedantic contents. Johnson appears on the margin of the sheet in a satirical profi le, his distinctive wig and pointed nose are repeated in more recognisable form in John Hamilton Mortimer The Reviewers Cave, c.1768 Mortimer’s Literary Characters Assembled Etching · 9 ⅝ x 7 ½ inches · 244 x 191 mm round a Medallion of Shakespeare drawn in Lett ered with the title, captions in the image and sixteen 1776. It has also been suggested that Johnson lines of verse in four columns ‘The Skin of many an is the ‘Doctor Expositor’ of Lloyd’s text, the Authors head … / If Ortho-dox the Serpents hiss’; Annotated in ink on the recto ‘Etch’d by Mortimer’. faceless judge presiding over the scene, as © The Trustees of the British Museum he had recently been awarded a doctorate by

26 Trinity College, Dublin.2 Other identifi able The Curate, another of his satirical poems. fi gures include the man second from the Rapidly handled and fi nely drawn, main judge on the right, to whom Johnson Mortimer’s sophisticated satire shows he is talking; this is Dr George Horne who was in full sympathy with the graphic work also appeared in Mortimer’s later drawing, of William Hogarth. Mortimer was clearly Literary Characters Assembled round a Medallion a friend of Lloyd’s as he would go on to of Shakespeare now at the Yale Center for produce the frontispiece for another of his British Art. Mortimer seems to have experi- works, Lloyd’s 1773 Epistle to David Garrick. mented with his caricature of Horne, draw- Mortimer’s abilities as a contemporary sati- ing him in the margin with his eyes closed rist of the literary world was reinforced by and wearing clerical bands; Horne was his 1776 drawing Literary Characters Assembled Master of Magdalen College, Oxford and around the Medallion of Shakespeare which later Bishop of Norwich. The fi gure closest was made for John Kenyon. This impor- to the principal judge is probably William tant, rediscovered sheet offers important Warburton who had also produced a critical evidence for the critical struggles of mid edition of Shakespeare. The books brought eighteenth-century Britain and provides before the judges are made clear in the interesting contemporary evidence for the fi nished print, the basket includes Lloyd’s satirical iconography of Samuel Johnson. own work, The Powers of the Pen; ‘Stern’, a reference to Laurence Sterne and ‘Churchill’, a reference to Charles Churchill. Above the Notes seated judges a donkey brays, reinforcing 1. Philip Smallwood, ‘The Johnsonian Monster and their crucial position. Mortimer makes the Lives of the Poets: James Gillray, Critical Lloyd’s position explicit, papering the walls History, and the Eighteenth-Century Satirical Cartoon’, British Journal for Eighteenth-Century above the judge with the titles of books and Studies, vol.25, no.2, Autumn 2002, p.224. works which had received critical censure, 2. Morris Brownell, Samuel Johnson’s Att itude to including Tristram Shandy and Lloyd’s own the Arts, Oxford, 1989, pp.94–95.

John Hamilton Mortimer Literary Characters Assembled around the Medallion of Shakespeare, 1776 Pen and black ink 8 ¼ x 11 ¼ inches · 210 x 286 mm Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

28 29 JOHN HAMILTON MORTIMER 1740–1779 a nuDe

Pencil heightened with white chalk The latter – along with a number of draw- Academy. The pose of the reclining female 11 ⅛ x 18 ½ inches · 282 x 470 mm ings in the collection of the Royal Academy model – her left hand drawn over her Inscribed ‘WYo Mortimer’ bott om left and Victoria and Albert Museum – are head – is loosely based upon the Belvedere Another study verso hesitant, student works made in the 1750s. In Cleopatra in the Vatican. Mortimer’s draw- Drawn c.1770 contrast the present drawing shows a mature ing is confi dently modelled, the contours ColleCtIoNs confi dence and almost certainly belongs to a of the body having been carefully strength- Probably Sir William Forbes 7th Bt. of Pitt sligo small group of life drawings that Mortimer ened, although it is clear this a working (1773–1828); made at the academy founded by the Society study; a second, fragmentary drawing of the thence by descent at Fett ercairn House, of Artists in 1769. Faced with the challenge of same model in the same pose is on the verso Kincardineshire to 2017. the newly founded Royal Academy of Arts, of the sheet. A drawing on the same paper This bold, characteristic life drawing was which had appropriated the equipment of and of similar dimensions, formerly with made by John Hamilton Mortimer towards the St Martin’s Lane Academy, the Society Lowell Libson Ltd, is in the collection of the the end of his career. Fluently worked in of Artists decided to found its own academy. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. That black chalk on buff coloured paper, the Mortimer was one of the artists deputed life drawing, which depicts a reclining male double-sided drawing of a reclining female to serve on the Academy Committee; along model, is inscribed by Mortimer’s friend nude underscores Mortimer’s lifelong with Ozias Humphry, George Stubbs, Joseph and colleague, Ozias Humprhy with the date interest in academies and was probably Wright of Derby and Johan Zoffany, he was 1773 confi rming that these drawings were made at the Society of Artists own academy chosen to set the models for the students.2 made at Maiden Lane. The present sheet is in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden of which he Premises were found in the former auction important evidence of the Society of Artists was a prominent founder and participant. rooms of John Moreing, where the Free short lived academy and of Mortimer’s John Hamilton Mortimer was a painter Society had held its exhibitions in 1765 and continued interest in artistic training. and etcher born in Eastbourne, Sussex. 1766, in Maiden Lane. Mortimer supplied a Apprenticed to the fashionable portraitist, lay fi gure and provision was made for both Notes Thomas Hudson. Mortimer was by March male and female life models. 1. John Sutherland, ‘John Hamilton Mortimer: 1759 working under Robert Edge Pine, a The present drawing was almost certainly His Life and Works’, The Walpole Society, vol.52, history painter and portraitist of repub- made by Mortimer when he was responsible 1986, pp.5–11. lican views who later moved to America. for setting the model at the Maiden Lane 2. Ibid., p.26. But as John Sunderland has pointed out, Hudson and Paine had relatively little impact on Mortimer’s early development; it was his work drawing in the Duke of Richmond’s sculpture gallery, access to the St Martin’s Lane Academy and Shipley’s Drawing Academy which had the greater impact. Mortimer won prizes offered John Hamilton Mortimer An Academy, c.1773 by the Society of the Encouragement of Pencil on laid paper Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, for 12 ⅜ x 19 ⅜ inches · drawings made after casts in the Duke of 314 x 492 mm Richmond’s sculpture gallery and life draw- Signed, also inscribed on verso ings made in the Great St Martin’s Lane Yale Center for British Art, Academy.1 Paul Mellon Fund

30 JOHN dEARE 1759–1798 venuS anD CuPiD

Pen and ink his contemporary, John Flaxman, Deare is end of Deare’s time in Rome was also in 10 ⅞ x 12 inches · 276 x 304 mm unusual for the exceptional quality of his the collection of Hugh Honour and John Signed, inscribed and dated ‘J. Deare – June – drawing, as much as his refi nement and Fleming. In 1787 Sir Cecil Bisshopp bought 1789 – Rome’, lower right skill as a technician in marble. The present, his relief of a Marine Venus (Parham Park), ColleCtIoNs ambitiously worked sheet is arguably a second version of which is at the Getty. Hugh Honour (1927–2016 ) Deare’s greatest Roman drawing and one of When on 24 June 1788 Deare’s statutory Villa Marchiò, Tofori, Tuscany, Italy. the most important large scale neoclassical three-year residence in Italy had elapsed lIteratUre sheets made by a British artist in the city at he had suffi cient commissions in hand to For the sculpture: P. Fogelman, P. Fusco and the end of the century. enable him to stay in Rome. He was then S. Stock, ‘John Deare (1759– 1798): A British Deare was described as ‘[a] young man of living near the Piazza Barberini (‘going to Neoclassical Sculptor in Rome,’ The Sculpture uncommon genius and taste’ when he was S.Nicolò di Tolentino on the left hand’), Journal, iv, 2000, cat. no.21, pp.96–97. sent to Italy in 1785 for three years by the where he was also listed in 1790 and 1793. Royal Academy; he settled in Rome on the Deare’s surviving correspondence reveal This hugely important, previously unrecor- Corso and was quickly successful.1 Within that the great traveller and magnifi cent ded large-scale drawing was executed by months of his arrival he had fi nished a ‘large patron, Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol John Deare in Italy in 1789 in preparation work’ (doubtless the large bas-relief with and Bishop of Derry had become a major for one of the sculptor’s major Grand Tour over thirty fi gures, The Judgement of Jupiter, client. The present, previously unrecorded commissions, a relief of Venus and Cupid which, according to Redgrave, he sent drawing, is the only known study for made for Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of back to the Royal Academy in London the Bristol’s most spectacular commission. Bristol and Bishop of Derry. Although only following year) and was making a model for In a letter written shortly after June 1790, in his thirties when he died, Deare is consid- Henry Blundell of Edward and Eleanor now in when Bristol left Rome, Deare stated that ered one of the most important neoclassical the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.2 A second he ‘received commissions to the amount sculptors of the late eighteenth century. Like version of this sculpture, made towards the of 270l. from the Earl of Bristol,’ but did

John Deare Venus Reclining on a Sea Monster with Cupid and a Putt o Marble · 13 ¼ x 23 x 4 ⅜ inches · 337 x 585 x 112 mm Carved into the marble, at bott om edge ‘John Deare Made It’ (Translation from Greek) The J. Paul Gett y Museum, Los Angeles

32 as a designer; in a moment of extraordinary plasticity, Deare depicts Venus’s hands running through the feathers of Cupid’s wings. Deare’s fascination with the potential for recession in the limited plane of a marble relief is also demonstrated by Cupid’s fore- shortened right leg. Deare’s fascination with the antique is demonstrated by the severe profi le he gives Venus, which recalls both Roman busts and gems. But Deare is not an imitator of antiquity, he imparts to his composition a life and boldness which looks forward to the work of Canova and Flaxman in the early nineteenth century. Deare’s drawings are exceptionally rare; this is the most important composi- John Deare John Deare tional study to survive. A partial sketchbook, Male nude, sheet for a sketchbook, 1785–9 Study of a classical head, leaf 6 from a sketch- Pen and ink, wash and pencil book, c.1788 showing studies after classical sculptures © Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2017 Pen and ink and wash survives in the Huntington Library, San © Courtesy of the Huntington Art Collections, Marino, CA and another sketchbook San Marino, California survives in the Victoria and Albert Museum, not give further details. James Irvine, indicated by a letter from Rome written by London. A less fi nished compositional study writing from Rome, in April 1791 specifi ed James Irvine: ‘He is now fi nishing a Venus for Deare’s relief of Cupid and Psyche survives the subject of the commission as a Venus and Cupid that Lord Bristol had ordered but in a private collection, but this sheet is and Cupid.3 As Fogelman, Fusco and Stock which he supposes will remain on his hands undoubtedly his graphic masterpiece.6 A surmised the commission was for a relief, according to the usual equitable and gentle- bold, highly worked, graphically inventive rather than a sculpture and the present manlike manner in which his Lordship drawing it is one of the most impressive drawing provides the only known evidence thinks proper to treat many of the artists.’5 compositional studies executed by a of its appearance. Deare had, appar- The later history of the sculpture is obscure, European neoclassical sculpture in Rome at ently, rejected two other commissions from but thanks to the rediscovery of this draw- the end of the eighteenth century. Bristol: one for a lifesize Hercules Deranged, ing, it may now be possible to identify what which must have been the same or similar to must amount to Deare’s Roman masterpiece. Notes the Fury of Athamas that John Flaxman under- The stature of the sculpture is attested 1. J. T. Smith, Joseph Nollekens and His Times, took for Bristol; and the other a political to by the scale and ambition of the present London, 1828, vol.II, p.317. 2. P. Fogelman, P. Fusco and S. Stock, ‘John Deare satire of Hercules Strangling the Snakes which sheet. Worked across the whole page in (1759–1798): A British Neoclassical Sculptor in was eventually undertaken by the Italian fi nely hatched pen lines, Deare has created a Rome,’ The Sculpture Journal, iv, 2000, pp.92–94. sculptor Giovanni Pierantoni. remarkable sense of the surface and volume 3. London, British Museum, Add. Ms. 36496, Bristol’s reputation was such that Deare of the relief. Deare has captured the mater- fol.307v. had some scepticism about the commission nal affection between the seated Venus and 4. J. T. Smith, Joseph Nollekens and His Times, from the beginning. The Bishop had given her son, Cupid. Cupid’s childlike quality is London, 1828, vol.I, p.251. commissions to several artists, and ‘just emphasised by the discarded quiver and 5. London, British Museum, Add. Ms. 36496, fol.307v. as we all expected orders on his bankers, bow and by the fact that he is playing with a 6. See P. Fogelman, P. Fusco and S. Stock, his Lordship suddenly (as usual) left Rome butterfl y. The presence of the butterfl y also ‘John Deare (1759–1798): A British Neoclassical without giving any orders.’4 Deare had alludes to Cupid’s later wedding to Psyche. Sculptor in Rome,’ The Sculpture Journal, iv, still not received payment a year later, as This drawing demonstrates Deare’s abilities 2000, no.25, p.115.

34 35 Pietro Pacilli 1720–1773 San Camillo De Lellis

Bozzetto in terracotta dei Monti, where he is listed as a potential Height: 19 ¼ inches · 490 mm vendor to the Museo Pio-Clementino in Sculpted in 1751–3 1770.2 In 1763 Pacilli completed a silver This remarkably fluid terracotta bozetto figure of San Venanzio for the treasury of was made in preparation for Pietro Pacilli’s San Venanzio. He is recorded as Pacetti’s most important public commission, a first master and it was evidently through large-scale marble statue of San Camillo de Pacilli that he began to acquire his facility Lellis for the nave of St Peter’s Basilica in as a restorer of ancient sculpture. Pacilli, Rome. Expressively modelled, this terracotta at his studio ‘poco prima dell’Arco della sculpture is a rare and significant work Regina alla Trinita dei Monti,’ exercised, made by a major Roman sculptor at a trans- what the nineteenth-century scholar, formative moment of European sculpture. Adolf Michaelis called ‘rejuvenating arts’ Pacilli began his working life on the great on several important pieces of classical Baroque decorative projects initiated in the sculpture, including in 1760 the group of a seventeenth century, but he found success Satyr with a Flute for the natural brother of as a restorer of ancient sculpture working George III, General Wallmoden, Hanovarian to finish antiquities for a tourist market, minister at Vienna.3 In 1765, Dallaway and becoming an important figure in the Michaelis record that Pacilli was responsible emergence of an archaeologically minded for the restorations, including the addition Neoclassicism. Pacilli trained Vincenzo of a new head, to the Barberini Venus which Pacetti and provided important decorative he had acquired from Gavin Hamilton.4 The Pietro Pacilli work for the Museo Pio-Clementino, at the Venus was then sold to Thomas Jenkins, San Camillo de Lellis same time he is recorded restoring some of who in turn passed it on to William Weddell Marble · Signed and dated 1753 the most celebrated antiquities excavated at Newby Hall. In 1767 Pacilli exported a St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican and exported during the period. series of ancient busts ‘al naturale’ including Stuart Robertson / Alamy Stock Photo Pacilli was born into a family of Roman portraits of Antinous, Julius Ceaser and Marus craftsmen, his father Carlo was a wood Aurelius, also a statue of a Muse and a Venus.5 In 1750 Il Diario Ordinario del Chracas carver, and Pacilli is recorded working As early as 1756 Pacilli seems to have been announced that Pacilli had begun work with him on the Corsini Chapel in San operating as an antiquarian, helping to on a sculpture of San Camillo de Lellis for Giovanni Laternao as early as 1735.1 In 1738 disperse the collection of the Villa Borrioni. St Peter’s.7 Camillo de Lellis founded his his terracotta model of Joseph and Potiphar’s Pacilli supplied sculpture to notable British congregation, the Camillians, with their Wife won the first prize in the second class collectors, including Charles Townley, distinctive red felt crosses stitched on black of the sculpture concorso at the Accademia who on his first trip to Italy purchased habits in 1591. Having served as a soldier in di San Luca, this is particularly notable the Palazzo Giustiniani statue of Hecate the Venetian army, Camillo de Lellis became as Bartolomeo Cavaceppi came third. He from Pacilli. Pacilli was involved with the a novitiate of the Capuchin friars, he moved worked as a carver and stuccoist complet- Museo Pio Clementino from its conception, to Rome and established a religious commu- ing works for the churches of San Marco supplying busts of Julius Ceaser and a Roman nity for the purpose of caring for the sick. In and SS. Trinita dei Domeniciani Spagnoli. Woman as well as completing stucco putti 1586 Pope Sixtus V formerly recognised the Pacilli operated as a sculptor and restorer surmounting the arms of Pope Bendedict Camillians and assigned them to the Church of antiquities from his studio at the top of XIV to signal the entrance to the new Museo of Santa Maria Maddalena in Rome. Camillo the Spanish Steps, close to Santa Trinita Critiano.6 de Lellis died in 1614 and was entombed at

36 Santa Maria Maddalena, he was canonised figure of San Camillo very much in line with Notes distensione del Barocco,’ in ed. Elisa by Benedict XIV on 26 June 1746. It was the immediate tradition of depicting single 1. Elisa Debenedetti, ‘Lambert Sigisbert Adam e Debenedetti, Scultore Romane del Settecento, an occasion that prompted the Camillians figures in St Peter’s; the rhetorical gesture Pietro Pacilli due protagonisiti della distensione v. II, 2002, p.63. 6. See: Carlo Pietrangeli, The Vatican Museums, to make a number of significant artistic of dynamic saint, arm outstretched, book in del Barocco,’ in ed. Elisa Debenedetti, Scultore Romane del Settecento, v. II, p.59. Rome, 1993, p.45 commissions, including two canvases by hand, head pointed upwards was perhaps 2. See: Seymour Howard, ‘An Antiquarian Handlist 7. Chracas, Diario Ordinario, 14 august 1751, Pierre Subleyras showing episodes from borrowed from Camillo Rusconi’s 1733 and the beginnings of the Pio-Clementino’, in p.10. San Camillo’s life which they presented to sculpture of St Ignatius Loyola, which was Antiquity Restored, Essays on the Afterlife of the 8. Eds. Edgar Peters Bowron and Joseph J. Rishel, Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, Benedict XIV.8 In 1750 Pacilli was commis- to the immediate left of the niche allotted Antique, Vienna, 1990, p.145. 3. Michaelis was referring to Pacilli’s rival exh. cat., Philadelphia (Philadelphia Museum sioned to fill one of the large niches on the to Pacilli. Rusconi’s example may also have Cavaceppi, see Adolf Michaelis, Ancient Marbles of Art) 2000, cat. no.287, pp.438–439. north wall of the nave with a sculpture of prompted Pacilli’s addition in his model of in Great Britain, Cambridge, 1882, p.62. For the 9. See Elisa Debenedetti, ‘Lambert Sigisbert San Camillo. a seated putto on the base of the sculpture Wallmoden sculptures see: ed. c.Boehringen, Adam e Pietro Pacilli due protagonisiti The present terracotta bozetto presumably clutching a crucifix, acting, as it does, as a ‘Die Skulpturen der Sammlung Wallmoden: della distensione del Barocco,’ in ed. Elisa Debenedetti, Scultore Romane del Settecento, had two important functions, to enable visual balance to Rusconi’s sculpture which austellung zum Gedenken an Christian Gottlob Heyne 1729–1812’, Gottinga, 1979, pp.39–41. v. II, 2002, pp.71–72, n.60. Pacilli to work out his ideas for the finished depicts Loyola trampling on a personifica- 4. Adolf Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, 10. Cristiano Giometti, Sculture in Terracotta: sculpture and at the same time to show his tion of heresy. Cambridge, 1882, Newby, no.20. Michaelis gives Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, design to the various commissioning bodies. Elisa Debenedetti has proposed that a two accounts of the restoration of the ‘Jenkins 2011, cat. no.100, pp.99–100. In this case it would have been Cardinal third model, painted white and installed Venus’ one citing Pacilli and the other Cavaceppi 11. Elisa Debenedetti, ‘Lambert Sigisbert as the restorer, the sculpture has subsequently Adam e Pietro Pacilli due protagonisiti Alessandro Albani and Monsignor Giovan in the church of Santa Maria Maddalena been exhibited as Cavaceppi’s work, see: Carlos della distensione del Barocco,’ in ed. Elisa Francesco Olivieri, the ‘economo’ or treas- in Rome represents a development of the Picon, Bartolomeo Cavaceppi; Eighteenth- Debenedetti, Scultore Romane del Settecento, urer of the fabric of St Peter’s.9 Previously composition, but given how close it is in century Restorations of Ancient Marble v. II, 2002, p.64 and 71, n.59. unrecorded, this terracotta relates to a small- composition to the finished marble, it is Sculptures from English Private Collections, 12. See Elisa Debenedetti, ‘Lambert Sigisbert er, less finished model which has recently more likely to be a model made after the exh. cat., London (Clarendon Gallery), 1983, Adam e Pietro Pacilli due protagonisiti pp.48–51. della distensione del Barocco,’ in ed. Elisa been identified as being Pacilli’s first idea project was completed.11 This makes the 5. See Elisa Debenedetti, ‘Lambert Sigisbert Debenedetti, Scultore Romane del Settecento, for his statue of San Camillo. Preserved in reappearance of the present sculpture Adam e Pietro Pacilli due protagonisiti della v. II, 2002, pp.71–72, n.60. Palazzo Venezia, in Rome, the terracotta particularly significant. We know from the shows San Camillo with his left hand clutch- correspondence of the sculptor Domenico ing his vestments to his breast; the pose and Scaramucci, that Pacilli had initially been action more deliberate and contained than commissioned to complete a second sculp- the finished sculpture.10 In producing the ture for St Peter’s, that of San Gerolamo present terracotta Pacilli has expanded and Emiliani, but he never completed the energised the figure. San Camillo is shown sculpture.12 Pacilli’s terracotta is exquisitely with his left hand extended, his head turned modelled, from the carefully accurate facial to the right, apparently in an attempt to features, to the details of costume; whilst look east down the nave of St Peter’s. The the back has been only roughly finished, model shows Pacilli experimenting with consistent with a sketch not designed to San Camillo’s costume; prominently on his be widely viewed. It survives in excellent breast is the red cross of his order, whilst condition with some modern restorations a sense of animation is injected into the making good a few old and minor damages. figure through the billowing cloak which is Such bozetti became hugely desirable pulled across the saint’s projecting right leg. towards the end of the eighteenth century The power of the restrained, axial contrap- and were avidly collected by connois- posto of bent right leg and outstretched left seurs and artists, the present large, boldly arm, is diminished in the final sculpture modelled and beautifully finished figure is Pierre Subleyras San Camillo de Lellis saving the Sick of the Hospital of where a baroque fussiness is introduced not only one of Pacilli’s masterpieces, but a Spirito Santo from the Floodwaters of the Tiber, 1746 to the drapery. What Pacilli’s terracotta particularly impressive terracotta made for Oil on canvas · 67 ¾ x 97 ⅝inches · 1720 x 2480 mm demonstrates, is that he conceived the the most important space in Rome. Museo di Roma, Rome

38 39 JOHANN VALENTIN SONNENSCHEIN 1749–1828 venuS anD CuPiD

Terracott a decorated Schloss Solitude near Stuttgart 14 ½ x 11 ¾ inches · 365 x 300mm (1769); he became a member of the Signed and dated ‘v. soNeNsCHeIN, 1780’, Ludwigsburg Kunstakademie in 1772. After lower left moving to Switzerland, Sonnenschein made In the original, giltwood frame large-scale busts, such as that of Jonann ColleCtIoNs Konrad Heidegger, the mayor of Zurich Private collection, UK, to 2017. (1778, bronze; Zurich, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum), as well as small-scale This important, previously unpublished portraits in terracotta, including Susanna relief by the German neoclassical sculp- Rosina Kupfer (1798; Zurich, Schweizerisches tor Johann Valentin Sonnenschein1 is Landesmuseum). He is best known for his a major addition to his known works. small terracotta genre scenes. Having served Sonnenschein was an early mentor as a modeller for the Ludwigsburg Porcelain of the sculptor, Johann Heinrich von Factory earlier in his career, the artist later Dannecker, and despite his work featur- worked in the same capacity for the Zurich ing prominently in the 2003 exhibition Faience and Porcelain Factory in Kilchberg- Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Schooren. He taught at the newly founded Models 1740–1840 held at the Metropolitan Kunstschule in Bern from 1779 to 1815. Museum of Art, New York, Louvre, Paris and Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, there are few examples of his work outside German and Swiss collections. Technically highly skilled, the present relief is an early work, but it contains elements of the theatricality which is such a feature of his mature sculptural groups, particu- larly the way the knot on the canopy of Venus’s bed protrudes outside the frame. Preserved in outstanding condition, this relief is a rare work by one of the most important German sculptors of the eighteenth century. A mentor of Dannecker, Johann Valentin Sonnenschein was an important forerunner of German Neoclassicism. In 1761 he began training in his native city of Stuttgart as a stuccoist under Luigi Bossi, before entering the Karlsschule in Giovanni Batt ista Scultori Stuttgart, where he studied with Friedrich Mars, Venus and Cupid, 1539 Wilhelm Bayer. Under the patronage of Engraving · 11 ⅛ x 8 ⅛ inches · 283 x 205 mm Karl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg, he © The Trustees of the British Museum

40 In his most impressive works, such as the the viewer to look down on her naked form. Notes spectacular Memorial for Ludwig Rudolf von The basic composition seems to have been 1. For Sonnenschein see Werner Bucher, ‘Valentin Jenner (1806) in the Historisches Museum, based on a sixteenth-century Italian model, Sonnenschein’, in Bernisches Mibiliar des Basel, Sonnenschein crystallises the possibly after a print of the same subject. Klassizsmus vib Christoph Hopfengärtner, 1758–1843, und Zeitgenossen Plastiken von tenebrous qualities of the sublime pushing As Burkard von Roda has pointed out, Valentin Sonnenschein 1749–1828, ex. cat., Bern his neoclassical fi gures into compositions of Sonnenschein is an exceptional technician (Jegenstorf Castle), 1986, pp.30–47 and Werner romantic emotion. The present relief dates in terracotta. The relief is modelled through- Bucher, Valentin Sonnenschein, unpublished from earlier in his career. Made in Zurich in out with remarkable delicacy and freedom. PhD, University of Basel, 1989. 1780, the terracotta plaque retains the quali- Texture is everywhere exploited: from the ties of Rococo sensuousness which he must crisp, intricate folds of the sheets, to the have learnt whilst working as a stuccoist tassel and fringe of the canopy to Venus’s in Stuttgart. The composition shows Venus richly worked hair. Sonnenschein exploits recumbent on her bed, her body twisted to the rilievo schiacciato with incised lines kiss her son, Cupid; in the background two suggesting the continuation of the canopy, putti are shown on a bed of clouds, holding vase and volume of clouds. an arrow (the traditional symbol of Cupid) Signed and dated and preserved in and a garland. Sonnenschein models Venus outstanding condition, within its o riginal with a sense of latent eroticism both in her carved, gilt frame, this relief is an impor- contorted pose – legs opened, with one foot tant addition to the known works by on the ground, the other bent behind her – Sonnenschein who, despite remaining little and viewpoint. Sonnenschein depicts Venus known, was a fundamental exponent of from a slightly elevated position, allowing European neoclassical sculpture.

August Friedrich Oelenhainz (1745–1804) Johann Valentin Sonnenschein Portrait of Johann Valentin Sonnenschein, 1793 Venus and Cupid, c.1780–1810 Oil on canvas Terracott a · Height: 10 ⅝ inches · 270 mm 29 ½ x 23 ¼ inches · 750 x 590 mm Signed ‘V. Sonnenschein’ bpk / Staatsgalerie Stutt gart © Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2017 42 bENJAMIN WEST PRA 1738–1820 eliZaBeth linleY anD her Son, thomaS SheriDan

Black chalk on lilac coloured paper This boldly executed drawing was made by with his right hand. The rapidly executed On the original backing sheet Benjamin West in 1775 in preparation for a life drawing relates to a large, full-length 13 ¾ x 8 ¾ inches · 350 x 222 mm large and impressive full-length painting portrait of a family group, in which the Signed and dated ‘B. West 1775’, lower right, now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. baby is shown receiving a fl ower from the also inscribed verso of backing sheet: ‘Mother Previously unrecorded, this drawing standing fi gure of his father. The painting and Child – a study from nature’ entered the collection of the Walker Art and signed ‘Benjⁿ West’ sheds valuable corroborative evidence on the full-length portrait now in Liverpool, Gallery, Liverpool identifi ed as The Sheridan ColleCtIoNs confi rming a date of 1775 and adding Family. As Von Erffa and Staley and later Private collection, Usa, to 2017. weight to the traditional suggestion that the Kidson have pointed out, the fi gures in the lIteratUre portrait depicts the great playwright Richard painting bare a close resemblance to known For the portrait see: Helmut Von Erff a and Allen Brinsley Sheridan, his wife, the singer portraits of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West, New Elizabeth Linley and their son Thomas. his wife, Elizabeth Linley.1 The date on the Haven and London, 1986, cat. no.696, p.552; By 1775 West was a successful painter drawing, 1775, fi ts with the biographies of Alex Kidson, Earlier British Paintings in the with a fl ourishing practice; a founder the sitters. Thomas Sheridan was born 17 Walker Art Gallery and Sudley House, Liverpool, 2012, pp.238–239. member of the Royal Academy, West became March 1775, the same year Richard Brinsley historical painter to George III in 1772. Sheridan had his fi rst great theatrical The 1770s proved to be a hugely successful successes as a playwright with The Rivals and decade, he produced his ambitious and The Duenna and the start of his managerial highly celebrated Death of General Wolfe career at Drury Lane Theatre in succession in 1770, which was conceived as a history to David Garrick. The drawing is preserved painting with the intention of morally in exceptional condition, a rapid, intelligent uplifting its audience. The popularity of this and lively life drawing it offers important picture (purchased by Lord Grosvenor, who information about the careful preparation eventually owned at least eleven pictures by West made for his large-scale compositions. West) and the engraving that was produced after it by William Woollett in 1776, one of the most commercially successful prints ever produced, served as an inspiration to aspiring history painters for many years. Part of West’s success was his inclusion of portraits within a historical composition. Portraiture remained an important part of his artistic output and the present sheet is a rare rediscovery of a drawing related directly to a portrait. Carefully signed by West on the recto with the date 1775, it is Note Benjamin West Pra inscribed and signed on the original mount The Sheridan Family, c.1776 by West: ‘Mother and Child – a study from 1. Helmut Von Erff a and Allen Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West, New Haven and London, 1986, Oil on canvas nature.’ The drawing made in black chalk 89 ¾ x 61 inches · 228 x 1605 mm cat. no.696, p.552; Alex Kidson, Earlier British Walker Art Gallery on pink, prepared paper shows a young Paintings in the Walker Art Gallery and Sudley Courtesy National Museums, Liverpool child on his mother’s lap, reaching up House, Liverpool, 2012, pp.238–239.

44 bENJAMIN WEST PRA 1738–1820 the artiSt’S ChilDren PlaYinG With a DoG

Pencil, pen and brown ink travelled to Rome in 1760 where he met an 7 ¼ x 7 ½ inches · 184 x 191 mm international circle of painters including Subsidiary sketches and signatures, verso, Anton Raphael Mengs and Gavin Hamilton. Extensively inscribed and dated ‘Raphael West/ Following Mengs’s advice, he copied antique Benjamin/ West/1774 Raphael/ Raphael West/ sculptures before touring in northern Italy Raphael West’, verso further completing his artistic education ColleCtIoNs by copying Old Master paintings. West The artist; arrived in London in 1763 and rapidly made Claire Francis, by descent; his reputation as both a portraitist and Francis sale, Christie’s, London, 14 March 1967, history painter. The following year West’s lot 36; William Drummond, to 2016. fi ancée, Elizabeth Shewell, the daughter of a Philadelphia merchant, joined him having lIteratUre crossed the Atlantic with West’s father. Their H. von Erff a and A. Staley, The Paintings of verso son, Raphael Lamar West was born in 1766 Benjamin West, New Haven and London, 1986, p.460, reproduced under no.541. and his younger brother, Benjamin West junior, was born in 1772. This compositional drawing was made by In this study, the two boys are shown on Benjamin West in 1774 in preparation for a a chair, playing with a dog. In the margin portrait of his two eldest children, Raphael West has drawn two further studies of the and Benjamin junior. The painting, now lost, boys, suggesting that this may be an ad was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1775 vivum sketch. The drawing was evidently and fi ts into a sequence of portraits West available in West’s studio, as Raphael West, completed during the 1770s of his family; the who would have been eight at the time, oval composition recalls West’s two portraits practiced signing his name on the verso of his wife holding Raphael West. along with that of his father (and brother). Benjamin West was one of the preemi- Raphael West went on to become a success- nent history painters of the second half ful painter in his own right. This drawing of the eighteenth century; he was born remained with his descendants to 1967. Benjamin West The Artist and his son Raphael, 1773 in Pennsylvania, the tenth and youngest Oil on canvas · 25 x 24 ⅞ inches · 635 x 632 mm child of John West, an innkeeper. West Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

46 Joseph Gott RA 1786–1860 George Banks

Terracotta Joseph Gott was born in London, and made numerous purchases at the 21 x 23 inches · 530 x 585 mm although his family were originally from exhibition of the Northern Society for the Signed ‘J. Gott Ft.’ Yorkshire and his second cousin was Encouragement of the Fine Arts. As a found- Sculpted c.1827 Benjamin Gott, a major patron of the er member in 1819 of the Leeds Philosophical Collections arts and a leading textile manufacturer and Literary Society, he was responsible, Trinity Fine Art, London; in Leeds. Joseph Gott was apprenticed to with Benjamin Gott, for commissioning Niall Hobhouse; John Flaxman in 1798 when he was 12; he Chantrey’s statue of Dr William Hey for Niall Hobhouse sale, Christie’s, London, 22 May left Flaxman in 1802 and entered the Royal Leeds Infirmary. 2008, lot 356; Academy Schools in March 1805, giving his At the date Banks met Gott, he had Private collection, London, to 2017. profession as sculptor. The following year recently purchased an estate near Doncaster This impressive terracotta model was made he won the silver medal for the best model and commissioned designs for a new by the neo-classical sculptor Joseph Gott of an academic figure he listed his address house, to be called St Catherine’s, from the in preparation for a portrait of one of his as Upper Norton Street, close to Flaxman’s Edinburgh-trained architect, John Clark. In most important patrons, George Banks studio in Fitzroy Square. In 1822 Gott the hall Clark included two gothic niches (1777–1843). Gott, a pupil of John Flaxman, was sent to Rome on a pension from the specifically designed to receive Gott’s was a major European sculptor based President of the Royal Academy, Sir Thomas sculptures of George Banks and his sister principally in Rome. Commissioned in 1827, Lawrence. Gott arrived in Rome armed Elizabeth. The present terracotta model was Gott’s seated marble sculpture of Banks with two letters of introduction to Antonio made in preparation for the final sculpture. was made for his new home, St Catherine’s, Canova, from J. T. Smith and Lawrence who Gott cast Banks in a classical pose, seated near Doncaster. The present maquette is a praised Gott’s ‘Talent if not Genius’ and the on an antique stool, his coat arranged in substantial terracotta model made as the ‘blameless Integrity & Worth of his private the manner of a toga across his knees. This final study for the finished sculpture. The Character.’2 pose instantly recalls Roman precedents. composition itself is both monumental and Gott achieved considerable success in Gott would have known the great sculpture domestic, Gott depicts Banks in a classical Rome, attracting commissions from British of a seated figure, traditionally identified pose and yet retains the contemporary visitors to the city, including William, as a depiction of the Greek dramatist, character of a modern man of business. sixth Duke of Devonshire, who ordered Menander, in the Museo Pio Clementino. As Friedman and Stevens pointed out, the A Greyhound with her Two Puppies now at It was a format Gott adopted for a number sculpture of Banks and his sister, Elizabeth Chatsworth. In 1827 Gott returned to of contemporary portraits, including Goodman Banks: ‘represent Gott’s most Britain, where he met George Banks and a terracotta model for a monument of remarkable achievement in this field.’ his sister, Elizabeth. Banks was a major Benjamin Gott and in a finished monu- Adding that it is in this sculpture of Banks cloth merchant; he was Deputy Lieutenant ment to William Ewart at St James’s Chapel, that Gott: ‘has brilliantly captured in the of the West Riding, a member of the Leeds Liverpool; the pose is simultaneously bold modelling and bull-like, north country Volunteers and, in 1818, Mayor of Leeds.3 senatorial and informal. But as Friedman features, an industrialist as an aspiring Banks moved in the burgeoning artistic and Stevens identified, the portrait is patron of the arts. It is strongly reminiscent circles of Leeds in the 1820s, he was a friend far removed from the austere classicism of Thorvaldsen’s contemporary portraits.’1 of the great collector John Sheepshanks of Gott’s friend and contemporary, John

48 Gibson, coming in its modernity and moment in Gott’s career. Another model of Joseph Gott George Banks, informality closer in spirit to the romantic Banks survives in plaster, a cast possibly and Elizabeth Goodman Banks, 1828 portrait sculpture of Thorvaldsen. Gott made from the present terracotta.4 Banks Plaster maquettes Leeds Museums and Galleries (Leeds Art Gallery) was also almost certainly aware of Antonio remained a major patron of Gott’s, commis- UK/Bridgeman Images Canova’s portrait of Letizia Bonaparte, which sioning a number of other sculptures Notes had been acquired by his patron, William, including an important bas relief, Metobus 1. Terry Friedman and Timothy Stevens, Joseph sixth duke of Devonshire. Gott used it as and Camilla which was exhibited at the Gott 1786–1860: Sculptor, exh. cat., Leeds the model for his portrait of Banks’s sister, Royal Academy in 1828 and installed on (Temple Newsam House), 1972, p.31. Elizabeth, whose portrait was designed as a the staircase at St Catherine’s; he was still 2. Terry Friedman and Timothy Stevens, Joseph pendant to that of her brother. supporting Gott in the 1840s, acquiring Gott 1786–1860: Sculptor, exh. cat., Leeds (Temple Newsam House), 1972, p.57. Gott’s preparatory terracotta model is large scale sculptures of Mary Magdalene and 3. Edward Baines, History, Directory & Gazetteer, of close to the finished sculpture; the head is St Catherine.5 the Country of York, Leeds, 1823, p.39. covered in pointing marks, suggesting it 4. See Terry Friedman and Timothy Stevens, Joseph was used directly as a guide for the marble. Gott 1786–1860: Sculptor, exh. cat., Leeds (Temple Newsam House), 1972, cat. no.25, p.32. Finely modelled and carefully finished, 5. Terry Friedman and Timothy Stevens, Joseph the terracotta is a rare and important Gott 1786–1860: Sculptor, exh. cat., Leeds surviving study from the most fertile (Temple Newsam House), 1972, pp.31–33.

50 51 Johan Zoffany 1733–1810 Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match: the reduced version made for the engraving

Oil on paper laid on canvas 1784 that Hastings commissioned Zoffany in 1784 to the publication in England of 24 ¼ x 27 ½ inches · 540 x 698 mm to produce the remarkable, multi-figural the mezzotint engraving based upon it Painted in 1791 composition depicting a cock match that in 1792.’ Our painting was mentioned in Collections took place between Asaf ud-Daula and the print in a newspaper account in the Public Recorded in Johan Zoffany’s studio British soldier, Colonel John Mordaunt. Advertiser on 11 March 1791. It was almost 11 March, 1791; The complex composition that emerged certainly painted in preparation for the The Cathcart family; offers a remarkable cross-section of society engraving made by Richard Earlom and Muirhead Moffat & Co., Glasgow; in Lucknow: at the centre the nawab vizier published by Robert Sayer on 1st May 1792. acquired from the above, 1982; and Colonel Mordaunt, surrounding Earlom was a highly skilled engraver who Private Collection, 2016. them a constellation of figures, recogniz- worked extensively for John Boydell, in Literature able members of East India Company in 1773 he collaborated with Zoffany produc- Public Advertiser, 11 March 1791; Lucknow, such as Lieutenant William ing a hugely successful print of The Royal Martin Postle, ‘Johan Zoffany: An Artist Abroad’, Golding, John Wombwell, the Company’s Academicians.3 Given the complexity and in Johan Zoffany. Society Observed, exh. cat., Accountant and Paymaster-General at size of the painting it is unsurprising that London (Royal Academy of Arts), 2011, p.41. Lucknow and his assistant James Orr; Zoffany made a reduced copy as a model Engraved other European denizens of Lucknow, such for the engraver. Whilst it was more Engraved in mezzotint by Richard Earlom, as Claude Martin and Zoffany himself; common for artists to use drawings, there published by Robert Sayer, 1st May 1792. The members of Asaf ud-Daula’s court, such is evidence that artists produced same-size print lettered below the image ‘J Zoffany pinxit/ as his Chief Minister, Hasan Reza Khan oil replicas as guides for engravers. During R Earlom sculp Londini/ At Lucknow, in the Province of Oude in the year 1786 at which and multitude of servants and spectators.1 the 1770s Giovanni Volpato supervised the were present several High and Distinguished The iconography of the painting is rich production of a series of painted copies of Personages/ For the Names see the Index and complex and susceptible to multiple Raphael’s frescos in the Vatican stanze in Plate./ Published 1st. May 1792, by ROBERT readings; it was described in the most preparation for a series of prints, this was a SAYER, Fleet Street, London.’ recent Zoffany exhibition held at the Royal project Zoffany may well have been aware Academy in 2011 as: ‘probably the most of during his own visit to Italy in 1772.4 This hugely important, reduced version remarkable image engendered by the British The painting itself is handled with of Johan Zoffany’s masterpiece, Colonel involvement in India, a provocative work of exceptional confidence, there is, through- Mordaunt’s Cock Match, was recorded being great visual power, complexity and hybrid- out, a fluid and painterly assurance court on the left are clearly and carefully Preserved in outstanding condition, Notes painted in London in 1791 in preparation ity that raises significant questions about which suggests that Zoffany had access delineated, even the elephant supporting this remarkably beautiful work is a hugely 1. For an authoritative description of the painting see Mary Webster, Johan Zoffany, New Haven for Richard Earlom’s mezzotint published power relations, race and culture at a critical to the larger canvas now in the Tate, or an a howdah in the background is carefully important addition to Zoffany’s oeuvre. As and London, 2011, pp.497–509. the following year. Painted with dazzling historical moment.’2 accurate sketch.5 Despite being under half painted, whilst the complex group of figures Martin Postle explains, the painting sheds 2. Gillian Forrester writing in Johan Zoffany. Society virtuosity and remarkable fidelity to the full- As Martin Postle explains in his essay in its size, Zoffany’s reduced version follows viewed beyond the awning of the cockpen valuable light on the chronology and history Observed, exh. cat., London (Royal Academy of sized painting, now in the Tate, this major this catalogue, the history of the painting the larger canvas faithfully in both compo- are all present. Zoffany’s distinctive rich of the Tate canvas, but perhaps more signifi- Arts), 2011, p.271. painting is published here for the first time. and the number and authorship of other sitional details and finish. Most copyists, palette and buttery application of highlights cantly it raises valuable new questions about 3. Mary Webster, Johan Zoffany, New Haven and London, 2011, pp.648–652. Zoffany travelled to India in March versions have been the subject of discussion faced with a complex composition such as animate the paint surface, each of the Zoffany’s relationship with Earlom and 4. Jonathan Yarker, ‘Raphael at the Royal Academy: 1783, where he was immediately taken and speculation since its completion. The this would be tempted to abbreviate certain fighting cocks are painted with flashes of Sayer and his remarkable abilities at minia- Giovanni Volpato’s modelli of the Vatican Stanze up by the governor, Warren Hastings. re-emergence of the present painting, he details for the sake of legibility; Zoffany rich vermillion to indicate their combs and turisation. As an autograph version of one of Rediscovered’, Artibus et Historiae, v.37, n.74, The following May, Hastings summoned notes is ‘the missing piece in the jigsaw… by contrast is meticulous in relaying for wattles. Zoffany clearly painted the picture the most distinctive, evocative and penetrat- 2016, pp.273–282. 5. The account in the Public Advertiser mentions Zoffany to Lucknow, the capital of Oudh, [allowing] us for the first time to understand Earlom’s benefit the richness of the larger with Earlom in mind, constructing an ing images of Empire produced during the that the present painting was: ‘copied from a to paint a portrait of the nawab vizier Asaf entirely the circumstances surrounding the version. Thus the expression of each of intense, chromatic version of his composi- eighteenth century, this remarkable work sketch, which the Artist took from Nature while ud-Daula. It seemed likely that it was in production of the picture from its inception the seated figures from Asaf ud-Daula’s tion which would translate as a print. stands as a landmark rediscovery. he was in the East.’

52 53 54 Johan Zoffany, Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match: a new discovery Martin Postle

In August 1789 Johan Zoffany returned to Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match has provided for example, by the turbaned Haider Beg England following a six-year sojourn in the missing piece in the jigsaw, and it allows Khan, and Nawab Salar Jung, who counts India. Zoffany’s Indian experience left an us for the first time to understand entirely the size of Asaf’s bet upon his fingers. indelible mark on him, and resulted in some the circumstances surrounding the produc- Indeed, aside from their gestures, the of the most stunning and original works of tion of the picture from its inception in 1784 manner in which the hands themselves are his entire career. Without doubt, the most to the publication in England of the mezzo- painted is unique to Zoffany. Finally, if we important picture he produced there was tint engraving based upon it in 1792. are to accept that the painting was produced Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match, described The newly discovered painting, which by Zoffany in the early 1790s – as is suggest- recently as ‘a masterpiece of figure painting, is painted in oil on paper, measures ed here – it compares favourably to other and a masterpiece of British eighteenth- 540 x 698 mm.4 Significantly, the dimen- compositions by Zoffany of his post-India century painting in India’.1 The picture was sions of the painting, including the border period, notably the extraordinary Plundering commissioned from Zoffany by Warren painted in black, are virtually identical to of the King’s Cellar at Paris, of 1794.7 In order Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal. the mezzotint engraving made by Richard to understand exactly when the present The cock match in question took place in Earlom and published by Robert Sayer painting was painted; its relationship to Lucknow between Colonel John Mordaunt, a in 1792, while the composition itself is Earlom’s engraving and to the prime version British soldier and adventurer, and Asaf-ud- the same dimensions as the composition painted for Hastings, we need to review in daula, Nawab Wazir of Oudh. Hastings, not engraved upon Earlom’s copper plate.5 The detail the evolution of that composition and otherwise a devotee of blood sports, was first thing to note, as revealed by recent its somewhat convoluted history. a friend of Mordaunt, and was probably conservation, is that painting – as might be In an essay published in the catalogue inspired to commission the painting as a initially supposed – is not superimposed to accompany the exhibition, Johan Zoffany. result of attending ‘Mordaunt’s Cock fight’, upon an impression of Earlom’s engraving, Society Observed, I referred to a hitherto as noted in a diary entry on 5 April 1784.2 but is an entirely discrete sheet of paper. unnoticed newspaper report in the Public Zoffany commenced work on the resulting Secondly, as close examination of the paint Advertiser, dated 11 March 1791. It stated that picture in the summer of 1784, which was surface reveals, the dextrous technique Zoffany was at work upon to all intents and purposes complete by and handling is entirely consistent with … a representation of the Nabob of Oude, his 1786. By this time Hastings had departed for Zoffany, indicating that composition cannot brother, and all his courtiers, at a Cock-fighting in England. Before Hastings left, in February be by the hand of a copyist or follower.6 The India. It is copied from a sketch which the Artist 1785, Zoffany presented him with an account central figures of Mordaunt and Asaf-ud- took from Nature while he was in the East, and for his various commissions, including a bill daula, and other prominent characters, contains about an hundred figures, attending for 15,000 rupees, ‘For an historical picture notably Lieutenant William Golding, seated this Royal game, in their long and stately robs, of a Cock pitt composed of a great number in the right foreground, share a refinement each according to his rank. Every figure displays of small figures’.3 Hastings did eventually of touch typical of Zoffany. Also evident as much eagerness for the success of his favourite receive the picture, but the circumstances throughout the quirky composition is bird, as is exhibited in Hogarth’s print of the surrounding its completion, its passage to Zoffany’s use of vibrant colour and his Cock-pit.8 England, and even its survival, have been inventive use of pictorial shorthand; not At that time I was unaware of the for many years the subject of conjecture least in the furious fighting cocks; the inten- present reduced version of the composition, and misapprehension, as is its relationship sity of their combat indicated by vigorous and observed that this report might give Johan Zoffany to several other versions of the composi- flicks and dashes of pigment. The expres- credence to a suggestion made in the 1820s Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match, c. 1784–6 tion, notably one made for Asaf-ud-daula. sions on the faces of all the characters in the by the architect and writer, James Elmes, Oil on canvas 41 x 59 inches · 1039 x 1500 mm However, the recent identification of a painting are captured brilliantly, as are the that the painting made for Hastings had © Tate, London 2017 reduced autograph version by Zoffany of postures and hand gestures; as witnessed, been lost on its way back to England, when

57 Zoffany was shipwrecked, compelling Zoffany exhibition, the Ashwick version was and proceeded to Daulut Khāna, a palace built by correspondent, John Pickford, who had Zoffany to concoct a replica made from displayed alongside the Hastings version Ussuf-ood-Dowla, but now uninhabited, except described the appearance of the Hastings sketches he had made in India.9 However, at the Yale Center for British Art, which for by some of the ladies and attendants of the old picture in a contribution, which appeared in as affirmed by Mary Webster, the story of the first time allowed a direct, first-hand, king’s zenāna. the same periodical a month earlier. There, Zoffany’s shipwreck, including the lurid comparison between the two works, and We went there to see a picture painted in oil the correspondent, a friend of Dawkins, had family legend of his enforced act of canni- evaluation of the extant of Zoffany’s hand in by Zoffani, an Italian artist, of a match of cocks, observed: ‘The colouring is rather faded by balism on an island in the Indian Ocean, is the work. Now it was clear that Zoffany had between the Nāwab Ussuf-ood-Dowla and the age and exposure, but even now it lights entirely untrue – even though it continues completed a number of figures, including Resident, Colonel Morduant; the whole of the up the dining-room in which it hangs, to be repeated to this day.10 As Webster Mordaunt, Asaf-ud-daula, and several figures are portraits; the picture excellent, but fast and when first coming from the easel of affirms, although Zoffany’s ship, the General others, as well as sketching in much of the falling into decay.15 Zoffany must have been, indeed, very rich Coote, encountered a severe storm, the background – including the shamiana. In Parks’s tantalising account suggests in colour and a fine work of art’.17 In order passage was completed successfully, and addition, it was immediately apparent that that Zoffany may have completed at least to challenge the credentials of the Hastings Zoffany disembarked on around 16 August the Ashwick version was smaller, and that one other version of the composition for picture, Xenex revived the story that the 1789, with all his baggage, including paint- the figure of Mordaunt stands much closer Asaf-ud-daula. Her identification of the painting produced originally for Hastings ings, sketches, memorabilia, and, apparently, to the bottom edge of the canvas, and in picture was supported by a correspondent had been lost at sea, and the one he eventu- three hundred and sixty five cotton shirts.11 front of the turbaned Indian cock fighter. of the London periodical, Notes and Queries ally received, was a third version produced Included among his belongings was, Charles Greig, who wrote the entry on the – the self-styled ‘Xenex’ – who noted in covertly by Zoffany from sketches; and presumably, Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match. Ashwick version for the accompanying 1896 that he had viewed the painting in that Hastings was ‘never let into the secret’. As far as we know, owing particularly to catalogue, affirmed that the Ashwick version the 1850s in the course of an inspection Xenex concluded recent research carried out by Mary Webster was probably painted for Asaf-ud-daula of Lucknow’s royal palaces. ‘Apart from its We have thus three paintings before us, and it and Charles Greig, Zoffany produced in sometime between 1786 and 1790; although artistic merits’, he recalled, ‘in its masterly remains for us to learn whether that last named or India at least two versions of the Cock Match. his putative ownership is by no means handling of colour, the impression produced whether a fourth representation of the cock-fight Richard Earlom, after Johan Zoffany Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match The prime version was the picture commis- certain. Greig also noted the previous confu- by this remarkable work was that, although at Lucknow is the picture which now hangs in Mezzotint · 20 ¾ x 26 ⅝ inches · 526 x 676 mm · Published by Robert Sayer, 1792 sioned by Hastings. Another version, begun sion over the painting’s authorship, Mildred nominally the subject, the cock-match itself Over Norton House, and MR. PICKFORD will add © The Trustees of the British Museum by Zoffany and completed by an unknown Archer having attributed it to Robert Home was but a mere accessory; the object of to the obligation which he has conferred upon artist working in Lucknow, was acquired in (who worked in India from the 1790s), while Zoffany having been the effective grouping us if he will afford this information, and will Lucknow by Richard Strachey (1781–1847), others had dismissed it as a Company school and realistic portraiture of a vast number of mention likewise, not only the exact dimensions of Resident at the Court of the Nawab Wazir of copy.13 Greig concludes that Zoffany’s failure notabilities, as well as the true rendering of the painting he has described, but whether it bears Oudh from 1815 to 1817. Apparently Strachey to complete the composition – assuming the characteristic features of an intrinsically signature and date under Zoffany’s hand.18 acquired the picture from a nephew of that it was intended for Asaf-ud-daula – was Oriental scene’. Xenex added at the picture At this stage, we can return to the more Asaf-ud-daula. This painting, known as the probably due to his growing awareness had remained in the royal palace until it recent past, and the acquisition of the ‘Ashwick’ version (after Strachey’s house, that his Indian patron, a notoriously fickle was destroyed during the Indian Mutiny in Hastings version by the Tate Gallery. Ashwick Grove, Bath), is presently on individual, was disinclined to compensate 1857–8.16 Although the intrinsic quality of In 1994, the Tate Gallery acquired the display at White’s Club, London. In her book, Zoffany for his efforts. Indeed, as his the picture in question is unknown, these Cock Match from a private collection.19 At published in 2011, Mary Webster noted the fellow artist in India, Ozias Humphry, was accounts suggest that the work in ques- that time the painting was subject to conser- clear differences between the Hastings and informed in 1789, Zoffany ‘has not received a tion – evidently held in high esteem and vation, and, for the first time, thorough Ashwick versions, noting how the latter had farthing from the Vizier, Minister’.14 located in a royal palace – may have been by technical investigation. The conservation been ‘extensively overpainted by an Indian As Greig commented, the uncertainty Zoffany himself. report makes interesting reading.20 Firstly, artist who filled in what appears to have over the Ashwick version’s authorship was A further complication thrown into the it established that Zoffany’s canvas had been an abandoned, certainly, and unfin- partly the result of knowledge of a third mix by Xenex in Notes and Queries was the been cut from a roll prepared and primed ished, canvas’. Webster also commented version of the Cock Match, recorded by the relative status of the picture he had seen in England, and attached to a stretcher upon the different settings, observing that intrepid Welsh traveller, Fanny Parks, in an in India compared to the version commis- of pine wood measuring 40 x 60 inches. the Ashwick version, although cruder in evocative entry her journal in 1831: sioned by Warren Hastings, which then Although the stretcher was manufactured After Johan Zoffany Key to Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match many ways, included a more accurate depic- 24th. [January] – I took a steam bath in true belonged to Lieutenant-Colonel William in England, it was suggested that was Hand-coloured etching · 10 ½ x 14 ½ inches · 268 x 370 mm · Lettered below with title, key (numbered 1–19) Published by Laurie & Whittle, 1794 tion of a tented house or shamiana.12 oriental style, which was very delightful; when Dawkins of Over Norton, Oxfordshire. re-assembled in India; which would make © The Trustees of the British Museum In 2012, on the occasion of the recent the pleasing fatigue was over, I joined a party, Xenex was prompted by a regular perfect sense given the issues surrounding

58 59 transportation. It seems likely therefore that conservator concluded this remedial work, knowledge of the evolution of Zoffany’s Family of 1771, and the Academicians of the Notes artist, Colonel Morduant’s Cock Match’, in Postle, Zoffany himself took the raw materials with very probably done in the early 1790s, was painting, or have even known of its exist- Royal Academy, published by Sayer in 1773. 1. Mary Webster, Johan Zoffany 1733–1810 (New 2011, p.272, no.87. 14. Greig, 2011, p.273. him on his voyage. It was also apparent that relatively crude, suggesting that it was also ence before this time; which may account Although Zoffany revealed to Sir Joseph Haven and London: Yale University Press), 2011, 15. Fanny Parks, Wanderings of a Pilgrim, in search at some stage Zoffany altered the position of carried out by Zoffany himself, rather than for his slight confusion. Rather, it is suggest- Banks that he was unimpressed by Earlom’s p.497. 2. Webster, 2011, p.497. of The Picturesque, during four-and-twenty the canvas on the stretcher, moving it down a professional restorer. At the same time ed here, Zoffany was at in fact making a ability to recapture the likeness in his 3. Webster, 2011, p.509. years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the slightly. However, since he subsequently that the dimensions of the picture were reduced version of the Tate composition, portrait of the Academicians, it remains 4. The early history of the painting is unknown. Zenāna, 2 vols., (London: Pelham Richardson), required additional space at the bottom edge altered, the frame, certainly produced in which he was then also conserving in none the less an impressive achievement It is not among the works disposed of in his 1850, vol.1, p.181. 16. ‘Xenex’, ‘Cock-Fighting in India: ‘The Cock-Fight’ of the painting to accommodate the feet of England, was also slightly reduced in size. preparation for delivering it to Hastings, given the complexity of the original image.24 posthumous studio sale of 1811. Having been in the possession of the Cathcart family, it was by Zoffany’, Notes and Queries: I Medium of the cock fighter to the left, he attached an As the report concludes, all these alterations since – as we have seen – it had clearly been The dimensions of Zoffany’s reduced purchased from Muirhead Moffay & Co., Glasgow Intercommunication for Literary Men, General additional a strip of pine to the lower edge to the canvas, the stretcher and frame must damaged in transit from India. The hypoth- version of the Cock Match, leave little doubt in 1982, and was with Daniel Shackleton in 2016. Readers, Etc., eighth series, vol.10, 31 October of the stretcher, painting directly onto the predate 1792 since the engraving by Earlom, esis is supported not only by the evidence of that it was made with the proposed engrav- 5. An impression of the engraving in the British 1896, p.351. unprimed wood. As the report suggests, published that year, reproduces the paint- the Tate conservation report, but by a note in ing in mind. His principal reason for making Museum measures 526 x 676 mm. Trustees of 17. John Pickford, ‘Cock-Fighting’, Notes and the British Museum, 1872,0309.428. The slightly Queries, eighth series, 26 September 1896, the impromptu and rather crude nature of ing with the loss at the right edge and the Hastings’s diary that he had visited Zoffany it, other than as a record of the composition, larger dimensions are owing to the measurement pp.263–64. the addition suggests that it was carried additional wooden strip at the bottom. The on 19 March – just a week after the press was that Hastings’s version would not be of the whole sheet rather than the dimensions of 18. ‘Xenex’, 1896, p.351. out in India – very probably by Zoffany inscription at the lower left of the picture report. Was this simply a social call, or was accessible to Earlom once its owner had the copper plate itself. 19. The picture had been sold at auction by Colonel himself. When the finished painting was would appear to be a later addition.21 In he there, as I would suppose, to inspect his finally taken possession. Indeed, having 6. Charles Greig, who has also inspected the Dawkins, Christie’s, 19 March 1898 (195). It was subsequently sold by the Marquess of transported to England it would appear to summary, the conservation report suggests picture? Certainly, the delay in the delivery waited so long to take possession of the painting closely at first hand, observes: ‘To me the handling of the paint, the colouring, Tweedsdale, Sotheby, 30 June 1926 (115). have remained upon the stretcher, since that sometime after its arrival in England, of the picture can be explained not only painting, Hastings would have been loath to the characterization of the figures, the quirky 20. I am grateful to Anna Southall, who conserved there are no cracks on the canvas to indicate and before it was engraved, Hastings’s Cock by the necessary repair work, but the time let it out of his grasp.In any event, Earlom’s details, and above all the clever relationship of the painting, for sharing her unpublished its having been rolled up.Indeed, as the Match was conserved in order to make it required for Zoffany to re-establish his home engraving was eventually published on 1 the various figures are entirely consistent with conservation report. Tate conservator remarked, the survival presentable to its owner, and that conserva- life and professional practice in London. It May 1792, a year or so after Zoffany had put Zoffany’s work and it has no suggestion of being 21. The inscription, which is crudely painted onto the a copy’. Email communication with the author, 11 wooden strip at the bottom, states: C‘ OCKFIGHT of both the original stretcher and the pine tion was almost certainly carried out by is also worth recalling that Hastings himself the finishing touches to the painting and May 2017. AT LUCKNOW ZOFFANY [? Pinct] 1790’. strip addition, suggests that the canvas was Zoffany himself prior to 1792. All of which had other pressing matters to attend to, completed the present reduced version, 7. See Webster, 2011, pp.564–68, fig.430; Postle, 22. Webster, 2011, p.553. not removed from the stretcher during the brings us back to the newly discovered being embroiled in a very public trial which and nearly eight years after the inception ed. 2011, pp.294–95, no.104. 23. Postle, ed., 2011, p.254, no.73. For a detailed journey. Although the painting survived, composition and its close relationship to the sought to impeach him for corruption of among his most remarkable achieve- 8. Martin Postle, ‘Johan Zofffany: An Artist Abroad’, account of Zoffany’s professional relationship with Sayer, and the Sayer family portrait see the subsequent removal of strips of canvas Hastings picture. during his time in India. ments in the course of a quite extraordinary in Johan Zoffany. Society Observed, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts and Yale David Wilson, Johan ZoffanyRA and the from the left and right edges suggest that it The first thing to acknowledge, and as It was while Zoffany was working on career.25 Center for British Art (New Haven and London: Sayer Family of Richmond. A Masterpiece of may have been affected by damp, since the detailed comparison reveals, the present the conservation of Hastings’s picture in Yale University Press), 2011 p.41. Conversation (London: David Wilson Fine Art paint layer shows signs of damage possibly painting must have been copied by Zoffany the early months of 1791, I would suggest, 9. James Elmes, Arts and Artists: Or Anecdotes Ltd), 2014. caused by an attack of mould. Given that directly from the picture made for Hastings. that the idea of making an engraving of the & Relics, of the Schools of Painting, Sculpture 24. For Zoffany’s derogatory remarks see Webster, & Architecture, 3 vols. (London: John Knight & 2011, p.253. Zoffany’s sea passage from India to England I would suggest that it was made in the composition evolved. And while the print Henry Lacey), 1825, vol.1, pp.12–13. 25. An engraved key to the identity of the figures in took over six months, often in humid condi- spring of 1791, either at Zoffany’s home at may have been instigated by Zoffany, it is 10. See Webster, 2011, pp.544–5. For the accounts the painting was published in 1794 by Laurie tions, and that he encountered at least one Strand-on-the Green, Chiswick, or more more likely that the suggestion came from concerning Zoffany’s shipwreck and resulting and Whittle, Robert Sayer’s assistants, who took severe storm during the voyage, damp must probably at a house he leased shortly after Robert Sayer, who had acted as his print cannibalism see Lady Victoria Manners and G.C. over the business on Sayer’s death in 1794. For Williamson, John Zoffany RA: his life and works: have been a perennial problem. his return in Russell Place, Fitzroy Square. publisher since the early 1770s. Over the an impression of the print see British Museum, 1735–1810 (London: John Lane, the Bodley 1928,0417.35. Once Hastings’s picture was landed safely ‘There’, as Mary Webster notes, ‘he began years Zoffany and Sayer had developed a Head), 1920, pp.66, 116–117. See also William in England in the summer of 1789, further to exploit the drawings and memories he close friendship, reflected in the portrait Dalrymple, White Mughals: Love and Betrayal remedial work was carried out, as the Tate had brought back with him by painting that Zoffany had painted of Sayer’s teenage in Eighteenth-Century India (London: Harper- conservation report reveals. First, the canvas pictures of Indian historical and sporting son in 1770, and the group portrait he made Collins), 2002, p.289, note; Philip Hensher, ‘The lovable artist who ate a sailor’, The Telegraph, 6 was lined and the damp-affected edges events’.22 The report in the Public Advertiser, of Sayer, his wife and son just prior to his March 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/ removed. At this point the stretcher was of 11 March 1791, referred to earlier, suggests departure for India.23 The third person art/art-features/9119353/Johan-Zoffany-The- probably altered and the canvas re-stretched. that Zoffany was painting a version of the involved in the printmaking partnership lovable-artist-who-ate-a-sailor.html, accessed 6 Following the relining, areas of the paint- Cock Match ‘copied from a sketch which the was the engraver Richard Earlom, who July 2017. 11. Webster, 2011, pp.545–46. ing were retouched, especially along the Artist took from Nature while he was in the had been responsible for making many of 12. Webster, 2011, p.507. lower edge where the pine strip abuts the East’. What needs to be acknowledged is the mezzotints after Zoffany’s paintings, 13. Charles Greig, ‘Johan Zoffany and a Lucknow canvas, and tacking holes filled. As the Tate that the reviewer would have had no prior including his group portrait of the Royal

60 61 THOMAS GAINSbOROUGH RA 1727–1788 traCk throuGh SanDY hillS With treeS

Black chalk obituarist, the Reverend Sir Henry Bate 10 ⅞ x 13 ⅞ inches · 275 x 345 mm Dudley wrote in 1788 that: ‘Nature was Signed in ink with initials ‘tg’, lower right his teacher and the woods of Suffolk his Drawn c.1748 academy; here he would pass in solitude his ColleCtIoNs moments in making a sketch of an antiquat- Private collection, UK; ed tree, a marshy brook, a few cattle, a sheep Stephen Somerville Ltd., London, 1988; herd and his fl ock, or any other accidental Private collection, purchased from the above; objects that were present.’1 In fact, this Spink-Leger, London, 1998; drawing, like the majority of Gainsborough’s Private collection, Usa, purchased from the earliest landscapes, was made towards the above, to 2017. end of the 1740s, after he had spent a period lIteratUre working in London in the circle of the Hugh Belsey, ‘A Second Supplement to second St Martin’s Lane Academy. We know John Hayes’s “The Drawings of Thomas he moved back to Sudbury in 1748/9 and is Gainsborough”’, Master Drawings, XlvI (4), Winter 2008, pp.466–67, no.1005, repr. fi g.30. recorded living in Ipswich by 1752, Belsey has dated the present sheet to 1748.2 The eXHIBIted landscape depicted – the sandy banks, sparse, London, Stephen Somerville Ltd. at Bernheimer, low trees and scrub – recalls the fl atlands Exhibition of Watercolours, Drawings & of Suffolk, but it seems unlikely that this Paintings, 1988, no.8; London, Spink-Leger Pictures, Annual particular drawing was made en plein air, or Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings, 1998, that it is even strictly topographical. no.1. At this date, Gainsborough’s landscapes were principally exercises made in the manner of Dutch seventeenth-century This meticulously fi nished drawing is models. We know Gainsborough had a one of the most ambitious compositional relationship with a dealer, Panton Betew, who studies Gainsborough made during the made a living selling modern imitations of fi rst decade of his career. It is the most Dutch seventeenth-century landscape paint- impressive sheet from a group rediscovered ings.3 During his training Gainsborough took in the 1980s; densely worked, the draw- part in the associated practices of the dealer ing offers valuable information about restoring and ‘improving’ Dutch paintings; Gainsborough’s technique and approach to the 1762 sale of John Oldfi eld’s collection landscape in the 1740s. As a fi nished, signed includes a ‘Dutch Landscape, repaired by Mr work it is also one of the most success- Gainsborough’ and a painting by ‘Wijnants ful and attractive drawings made whilst the fi gures by Mr Gainsborough’.4 The access Gainsborough was establishing himself as to genuine Dutch landscapes of the seven- an independent master. teenth century offered a supplement to the Gainsborough was born in Suffolk and young Gainsborough’s formal training. This there is a long tradition that associates his exposure evidently stimulated his activity as earliest landscapes with the fl at scenery a painter producing landscape compositions of East Anglia. Gainsborough’s friend and heavily indebted to seventeenth-century

62 models.5 These were the paintings that number of drawings in the Royal collection Notes Gainsborough would later refer to as ‘my fi rst are closely related to the present composition 1. The Morning Herald, 8 August, 1788. imitations of little Dutch Landskips.’6 (RCIN 931545, 931550, 931556) and underline 2. Hugh Belsey, ‘A Second Supplement to John Hayes’s ‘The Drawings of Thomas Gainsborough’, The present composition, with its serpen- the difference in the fi nal years of the 1740s Master Drawings, XlvI (4), Winter 2008, tine path leading through sandy banks, and between a highly fi nished exercise such as pp.466–67, no.1005. framing trees recalls the work of Meindert our drawing and a drawing made for tran- 3. J. T. Smith, Nollekens and His Times, London, Hobbema or Jan Wijnants. The drawing is scription to canvas. There is evidence that 1828, vol.I, pp.189–90. 4. A. Corri, ‘Gainsborough’s Early Career: New carefully structured and Gainsborough has Gainsborough sold his fi nished drawings. Documents and Two Portraits’, The Burlington clearly experimented with building up areas Joseph Nollekens recorded Panton Betew Magazine, vol.125, 1983, pp.212–16. of dense vegetation to make an interesting stating that: ‘I have had many and many a 5. Susan Foister, The Young Gainsborough, exh. scene, full of variety. Gainsborough did work drawing of his [Gainsborough’s] in my shop- cat., London (National Gallery), 1997, pp.3–12. 6. John Hayes, The Lett ers of Thomas outdoors and numerous sketchbook pages window before he went to Bath; ay, and he Gainsborough, New Haven and London, 2001, survive proving the extent to which he made has often been glad to receive seven or eight p.174. careful studies from nature, but there is shillings from me for what I have sold: Paul 7. Thomas Gainsborough to the Hon Constantine also evidence that he did not consider these Sandby knows it well.’8 The present sheet Phipps, later 2nd Baron Mulgrave, in ed. John Hayes, The Lett ers of Thomas Gainsborough, to be fi nished works of art. Gainsborough was discovered with six other drawings of New Haven and London, 2001, p.92. articulated the idea that these studies acted approximately the same date, all of a similar 8. J. T. Smith, Nollekens and His Times, London, as exercises rather than formal drawings in a level of fi nish, although not all fi nished. 1828, vol.I, pp.189–90. letter to his patron, Constantine Phipps, who he was teaching to draw: ‘You know, Sir, I set you to this [sketch of foliage] merely to free your hand, but you are not to understand that for Drawing – therefore remember that there must be truth of hand, as well as freedom of hand in Drawing.’7 As a fi nished drawing, signed in pen, in the bottom right with Gainsborough’s initials, it is perhaps worth considering the purpose of such a sheet? Highly worked drawings such as this seem not to be preparatory to paintings, although it is, in a sense, related to a number of Gainsborough’s fi nished canvas- es made at the same time: the subject matter and handling are analogous if not identical. The recent re-identifi cation by Lindsay Stainton of a group of large-scale landscape drawings of the second half of the 1740s in the Royal Collection at Windsor will certainly aid our understanding of Gainsborough’s working practices as a landscape painter early in his career. The Windsor drawings were evidently intended to be used directly as aids to producing easel paintings and one Thomas Gainsborough Wooded landscape with peasant resting, c.1747 must assume that his rapidly increasing Oil on canvas confi dence as an artist and as a technician 24 ⅝ x 30 ¾ inches · 625 x 781 mm soon rendered such studies unnecessary. A © Tate, London 2017

64 65 PAUL SANdbY RA 1731–1809 eton ColleGe, from CroWn Corner

Watercolour over pencil on Whatman paper detail, social observation and careful topog- 12 ¼ x 19 ¼ inches · 311 x 489 mm raphy which made his works so sought Signed and dated ‘P. Sandby 1779’, lower left after by contemporaries. Preserved in ColleCtIoNs outstanding condition, the present drawing Fine Art Society, May 1951, no.50; is one of the most impressive of a number Lt. Col. Cuthbert Dawnay MC (1891–1964); of iterations of the same view Sandby made Sir Oliver Millar gCvo (1923–2007) son-in-law during his career. of the above by descent; Paul Sandby’s elder brother, Thomas, Private collection, UK, to 2013; began his life as a military draughtsman in Private collection, Usa, to 2017. the Ordnance offi ce in the Tower of London. It seems likely that Paul learnt his early This beautifully preserved watercolour skills as a draughtsman and watercolour drawing by Paul Sandby was made in 1779, artist from his elder brother. In 1747 the when he was at the height of his powers as a brothers were employed as part of the landscape artist. Depicting the view of Eton military survey of Scotland, commissioned College from Crown Corner in Windsor, on following the Jacobite Rising. Sandby’s early the south bank of the Thames, the drawing training was therefore rooted in the accurate is fi lled with the combination of incidental recording of views for practical purposes.

Paul Sandby Eton College, from Crown Corner, 1776 Etching and aquatint · 13 ⅜ x 19 ¼ inches · 340 x 488 mm © Trustees of the British Museum

66 Around 1764 Thomas Gainsborough wrote a boat unloading coal, a fi sherman step- Notes to a patron declining to paint ‘real views ping out of his boat carrying a recently 1. Ed. John Hayes, The Lett ers of Thomas from Nature in this Country’, but praised caught eel and a woman and her children Gainsborough, New Haven and London, 2001, Paul Sandby as ‘the only Man of Genius… carrying pales of water. On the left Sandby p.30. 2. The Monthly Magazine, vol.31, June 1811, p.440. who has employ’d his Pencil that Way.’1 has included another favourite motif, a 3. Ann V. Gunn, The Prints of Paul Sandby (1731– Gainsborough’s comment was something waterseller’s wagon. 1809) A Catalogue Raisonné, Turnhout, 2015, of a backhanded compliment, but it is The wagon and woman carrying pai ls cat. no.230, p.233. evident that he respected his fellow Royal appear, from a different angle, in Sandby’s 4. See eds. Andrew Wilton and Anne Lyles, The Great Age of British Watercolours: 1750–1880, Academician’s ability as a landscape artist. aquatint of the same view published in exh. cat., London (Royal Academy of Arts), 1993, It was in the 1760s that Sandby estab- 1776. The technique of aquatint – which cat. no.256. lished himself as a landscape painter of had only recently been developed – was 5. Quoted in Eds. John Bonehill and Stephen distinction in London. His reputation seems especially suited to the reproduction of Daniels, Paul Sandby: Picturing Britain, exh. cat. to have been founded particularly on the watercolour drawings and Sandby became London (Royal Academy), 2010, p.154. remarkable group of drawings Sandby made an early pioneer. Forming part of a series of in and around Windsor. His connection ‘Views of Windsor and Eton’ the aquatint to Windsor was through his elder brother, shows the way in which Sandby experi- Thomas, whom the Duke of Cumberland, mented and elaborated his landscapes.3 then Ranger of Windsor Great Park, had The distant view of Eton College, with the employed as draftsman from the 1750s. framing tree on the right remain the same, Thomas’s residence in Windsor made Paul but the fi gures in the foreground change a regular visitor, especially after Thomas in each different version of the composi- was appointed Deputy Ranger in 1765. tion. This suggests the composite nature Many of Paul’s most spectacular drawings of Sandby’s landscape practice. In a late, were panoramic, in which he combines a ambitious version of this view, executed in delicacy of colour and meticulous detail gouache, Sandby shows the same mason at to provide information and telling records work, but different traffi c on the Thames of the scenes he is depicting. As his son and frames the composition with an noted: ‘he aimed at giving his drawings the additional tree on the right.4 appearance of nature as seen in a camera From the 1790s onwards, Sandby was obscura with truth in the refl ected lights, increasingly viewed as a pioneer of the clearness in shadows and aerial tint and emerging school of ‘painters in water- keeping in the distance and skies.’2 Sandby colour’. In 1796 a very brief account of Paul transformed these topographical views into Sandby’s career appeared in the European more complex landscapes fi lled with human Magazine and London Review, it praised him: incident and social commentary. For force, clearness, and transparency, it may The present drawing is a particularly very truly be said that his Paintings in water beautiful example of his Windsor views. colours have not yet been equalled; the Views of Depicting the distinctive profi le of Eton Castles, Ruins, Bridges, & c.which are frequently College Chapel seen across the river Thames, introduced, will remain monuments to the Sandby has populated the foreground with honour of the Arts, the Artists, and the Country, an industrious group of fi gures. On the far when the originals from which they are designed right a stonemason is seen at work, cutting are mouldering into dust.5 paving slabs from a block of stone; this This was particularly true of his water- was a favourite motif of Sandby’s which he colours of Windsor and its environs which repeats in a number of his Windsor views. have long been celebrated as his most The vignettes of Thames-side life depict beautiful works.

69 MICHAEL ANGELO ROOKER ARA 1746–1801 CorPuS ChriSti ColleGe from ChriSt ChurCh meaDoW

Pen and ink and watercolour instead on furthering his career as a water- 11 ¾ x 18 inches · 298 x 457 mm colourist and also as a scene painter. Signed and dated ‘J Rooker Delin 1782’ lower left The present drawing is one of the most ColleCtIoNs attractive made by Rooker for the Oxford Commissioned by the Clarendon Press for the Almanack. As Conner has established, Rooker Oxford Almanack; was required to prepare his drawings two Reginald Alton (1919–2003); years before the engraving appeared; this and by descent, 2017. explains why the present drawing is dated lIteratUre 1782 but was only published in 1784.1 Rooker Helen Mary Pett er, The Oxford Almanacks, 1974, was not paid by the University directly, p.143; but commissioned by the printer, William Patrick Conner, Michael Angelo Rooker Jackson; he received the substantial sum 1746–1801, London, 1984, pp.107, 109–10, 113, of 50 guineas per plate.2 This arrangement repr. fi g.64. explains why the original drawings for the Engraved by Michael Angelo Rooker in 1783 for the Oxford Almanack of 1784. Almanack did not remain the property of the Michael Angelo Rooker Corpus Christi College University, unlike the later designs made by from the Fields for the Oxford Almanack of 1784 This remarkably fresh, lucid drawing demon- J.M.W. Turner and Edward Dayes. Coloured engraving · 11 ½ x 17 ¾ inches · 293 x 450 mm strates why Michael ‘Angelo’ Rooker was one Eleven of Rooker’s designs for the Oxford Lowell Libson Ltd of the most eminent topographical draughts- Almanack survive, of which this view of man of the eighteenth century. For twenty Corpus Christi College is one of the most roof-line. In the foreground, Rooker fi lls the years he supplied the pictorial designs for the appealing and unusual. As Conner has drawing with fi gures in academical dress annual Oxford Almanack, for which this view pointed out, it deviates from the standard and a charming vignette of two boys playing of the Fellows’ Building at Corpus Christi pictorial convention of showing University with a dog. College, Oxford was made in 1782. buildings from an oblique angle.3 Rooker Rooker’s technique, while exhibiting the Rooker was born into an artistic family, instead shows the façade of the Fellows’ refi ned infl uence of Sandby, similarly plays his father, Edward, was a respected archi- building front-on from Christ Church with roughness and variety by blending tectural engraver, and he learnt the same Meadow. The drawing itself is fi lled with broad washes with small staccato dots and trade surrounded by London’s leading artists. incidental detail, converting a dry anti- lines of pigment, a manner the young J.M.W. Paul Sandby was a close associate who not quarian drawing into a picturesque piece Turner held in high esteem. Turner specifi - only served alongside Edward Rooker on of topography. The severe façade of the cally copied Rooker’s Almanack drawings the Society of Artists governing committee, Fellows’s building is enlivened by a number as a young man and referred back to them but also collaborated with him on various of open windows, several with attractive when he was himself employed to produce topographical and historical engravings. fl ower pots on their sills, and dappled shad- designs for the publication himself. The younger Rooker worked with Sandby in ows cast by neighbouring trees. The Fellows’ the 1760s, he was amongst the fi rst intake building, formerly known as Turner’s of students at the Royal Academy in 1769. buildings, was erected between 1706 and Notes His relationship with Sandby continued 1716, it seems to have been designed by the 1. Patrick Conner, Michael Angelo Rooker and during the 1770s he engraved a series of President of the College, Thomas Turner. 1746–1801, London, 1984, pp.109–10. 2. Edward Edwards, Anecdotes of Painters, London, Sandby’s country-house views for The Copper- The regularity of the architecture is further 1808, p.266. Plate Magazine. From the end of the 1770s, he punctuated by Rooker’s inclusion of the 3. Patrick Conner, Michael Angelo Rooker largely abandoned engraving, concentrating spire of St Mary’s Church, peaking above the 1746–1801, London, 1984, p.110.

70 GEORGE RICHMONd RA 1809–1896 heaD of a Woman

Black chalk and pencil The precise circumstances of this 13 x 10 ¾ inches; 333 x 273 mm carefully observed and meticulously Signed ‘Geo. Richmond’, lower right fi nished drawing are unknown. Drawn in Drawn c.1860 Richmond’s characteristic style, with rapid ColleCtIoNs hatched lines indicating the background Private Collection, Usa, to 2017. and softer modelling for the face; Richmond has strengthened the features, with bolder This powerful portrait of a black woman pencil lines, perhaps indicating it was made was made by George Richmond in the in preparation for an engraving. Given the 1860s, possibly during the American Civil subject and date, it may not be a portrait, but War. Richmond, one of the leading portrait a depiction of a slave. The hoop earrings and painters of the mid-nineteenth century, necklace are consistent with contemporary drew many important abolitionists. In 1833 depictions of slaves, for example the fi gure he produced a celebrated portrait of William of a female fi gure in Richard Ansdell’s Wilberforce which was turned into a hugely powerful work The Hunted Slaves of 1861, popular engraving. In 1849 Richmond drew which illustrated a poem by Longfellow, The the social reformer Harriet Martineau, and Dismal Swamp, at the outset of the American in 1853 he drew Harriet Beecher Stowe. Civil War.1 Many British artists, such as The present sensitive study is previously Ansdell, were prominent in their support unrecorded, but may relate to a project for the Unionists and their anti-slavery designed to support the abolition of slavery position. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which had been in the United States. published in 1852 was hugely popular in Richmond was the son of the miniaturist Britain, given Richmond’s association with Thomas Richmond, he enrolled at the Royal Harriet Beecher Stowe, the present draw- Academy Schools in December 1824, when ing may relate to a previously unknown he was still only 15. From several early draw- project to illustrate the novel. Without ings it is clear that he admired the idiosyn- further evidence, this enigmatic drawing cratic style of the Keeper, Henry Fuseli, but stands as a sensitive portrait made by one his greatest infl uence was the aged William the leading British painters of the mid- Blake, whom he met early in 1825. In 1831 nineteenth century. Richmond, married and faced with the demands and responsibilities of a family, Note turned to portraiture. He became a hugely 1. Hugh Honour, The Image of the Black in Western prolifi c and successful portraitist, producing Art: From the American Revolution to World large numbers of depictions of eminent War I: Slaves and Liberators, Cambridge, 2012, fi gures from nineteenth-century society. pp.180–181.

72 JOHN MARTIN 1789–1854 maCBeth anD the three WitCheS

Oil on millboard Museum, Missouri), a painting remarkable 8 x 12 inches · 200 x 305 mm for its combination of dramatic composition Painted c.1849–1851 and luminous colouration that was to be ColleCtIoNs Martin’s speciality for the rest of his career. Private collection, Germany, to 2017. Martin then produced a series of successful paintings including Joshua Commanding the Macbeth, upon his return from the Highlands, Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon in 1816, The Fall after the defeat of MacDonald, meets the Weird of Babylon, exhibited in 1819 at the British Sisters on the blasted heath before sunset. Institution and Belshazzar’s Feast for which maCBeth: Stay you imperfect speakers, tell Martin won the fi rst premium of £200 at the me more’ British Institution exhibition of 1821. Martin BanQuo: Whither are they vanished?1 emerged as an artist who was capable of using compositional effects, subject matter This exquisitely handled, fl uid painting and publicity to appeal to a mass audience. was made by John Martin towards the end Belshazzar’s Feast was acquired by the glass of his career. Reprising one of the only painter William Collins, who exhibited the Shakespearean subjects Martin tackled, painting in his shop on The Strand before it Macbeth meeting the three witches, taken toured the country.2 A description published from Act I, Scene 3 of the play, demonstrates to accompany the painting cited the archaeo- Martin’s interest in dramatic climactic logical accuracy of Martin’s use of archi- events and the supernatural. Martin painted tecture; Martin the showman recognized a large-scale painting of this subject in 1820 the allure of ‘authenticity’. As the German and exhibited at the British Institution, critic G. F. Waagen said, such paintings as which was engraved as a celebrated mezzo- Belshazzar ‘unite in a high degree the three tint made by Thomas Lupton, published in qualities which the English require above all 1828. This fi nely executed cabinet treatment in a work of art—effect, a fanciful invention, of the subject is previously unrecorded. inclining to melancholy, and topographical Michael Campbell has suggested that it was historical truth.’3 Martin achieved great made towards the end of Martin’s career in commercial success and an international around 1850. reputation through the prints of his works. John Martin was born in Martin’s large oil of Macbeth fi rst appeared Northumberland and began his career in the midst of his most successful and apprenticed initially to a coach-builder productive period, being exhibited at the in Newcastle upon Tyne to learn herald British Institution in 1820, a year after The painting, but left to be instructed by the Fall of Babylon and the year before Belshazzar’s Piedmontese artist Boniface Musso, whom Feast. The painting depicted an early scene of he followed to London in 1806, to take up a the play, in which Macbeth’s future as fi rst career in china painting. He fi rst exhibited Thane of Cawdor, and then King of Scotland at the Royal Academy in 1811, but fi rst made is foretold, specifi cally the point at which the an impact the following year with Sadak in three witches are about to disappear, having Search of the Waters of Oblivion (St Louis Art delivered their fateful prophecy on ‘the

74 blasted heath’. The composition demonstrates Martin’s ability to synthesise elements from his previous successful works in a fresh composition: distant armies, super-natural events, portentous skies and a central fi gure at the moment of a life-changing decision. John Martin himself stated that he consid- ered the painting to be ‘one of my most successful landscapes’ in his autobiographical essay published in The Illustrated London News in 1849.4 The 1820 exhibition painting has been lost, but three later versions survive along with a large preparatory watercolour and the mezzotint which appeared in 1828.5 The present, previously unrecorded oil, reprises the subject of Macbeth, but is a completely autonomous work. Martin has condensed the composition to produce a cabinet-sized painting; the landscape and sky in particular have been made more compact. He appears John Martin Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon, 1816 to have developed the composition from the Oil on canvas · 59 x 91 inches · 1500 x 2310 mm original oil, but has shifted the orientation Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, Paul Mellon Fund to show Macbeth and Banquo looking to the right at the ghostly fi gures of the three witches evaporating into the raging sky. This change in orientation makes the action of the painting read more naturally from left to right; the witches’ departure is accompanied by the towering grey sky, with a fl ash of liquid paint indicating lightening, whilst on the far left, the sky has resolved into a golden sunset framed by a wall of cumulus clouds of the sort found throughout John Martin’s original mezzotints such as Satan Viewing the Ascent to Heaven (1824–25). Unlike his earlier, exhibition work, Martin shows Macbeth and Banquo from behind, this was a dramatic conceit he had used in his 1816 Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand still upon Gibeon. Similar too, is the way that Martin shows Macbeth’s army disappearing below the ridge, this was a device he deployed in Joshua and

elsewhere in his works. Martin has changed Thomas Lupton, aft er John Martin Macbeth, 1828 Macbeth and Banquo’s costume, adding to Mezzotint · 12 ¾ x 15 ⅞ inches · 323 x 403 mm their tartan kilts, armour including a small © Trustees of the British Museum

76 77 circular shield, known as a targe which was a Shakespearean and Scottish subjects at the Notes traditional highland weapon. Martin we know beginning of the 1850s. In 1850 he painted a 1. This was the passage that accompanied Martin’s was keen to achieve a degree of antiquarian sizeable oil which he exhibited at the British large canvas of Macbeth exhibited at the British Institution in 1820. See Algernon Graves, The accuracy with his historical scenes.6 Institution the following year, entitled The British Institution 1806–1867, London, 1908, p.370. As Michael Campbell has pointed out, the Forest of Arden, the subject was stated to be 2. Ed. Martin Myrone, John Martin: Apocalypse, exh. palette is typical of late oils by Martin, with from As You Like It, Act II, Scene I. In 1851 he cat., London (Tate Gallery), 2011, pp.99–108. greys set against pinks and a characteristic painted an elaborate watercolour, recently 3. G. F. Waagen, Works of Art and Artists in England, bolt of lightning. The glowing sunset separat- proposed as a subject from Sir Walter Scott, 1838, London, vol.II, p.162. 4. Ed. Martin Myrone, John Martin: Sketches of my ed from the storm by banks of cloud and the this sweeping Romantic work shows a clear Life, London, 2011, p.34. complex layering of browns which suggest return to Highland subjects in Martin’s final 5. See Michael J. Campbell, John Martin Visionary infinite undefined detail in the lower corners years.8 Printmaker, exh. cat. York (York City Art Gallery), are also entirely consistent with Martin’s own Richly painted, with highly fluid 1992, p.189. 6. Martin apparently made inquiries into historical compositional technique. Probably painted in handling, this oil is a particularly compel- highland dress when preparing the painting in the late 1840s or early 1850s, Martin used an ling essay in Martin’s grand style made on 1820. Leopold Charles Martin, Reminiscences of artist’s millboard manufactured by Winsor a domestic scale. Preserved in exceptional John Martin KL, The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, & Newton after their appointment as Royal condition, this dramatic oil is an important Supplement, January 26th 1889, p.1. Colourmen in 1841. addition to Martin’s oeuvre. 7. Engraved by R. Brandard for The Winter’s Wreath, 1832 facing p.37. After financially unsuccessful attempts at 8. Ed. Martin Myrone, John Martin: Apocalypse, exh. developing engineering and urban schemes We are very grateful to Michael Campbell for his cat., London (Tate Gallery), 2011, cat. no.114, and costly attempts to bring about reform of help in preparing this catalogue entry. pp.204–205. the copyright laws, projects which diverted his attention from the creation of lucrative oil www.lowell-libson.com We have an international reputation as and private collectors amongst our regular paintings, Martin was facing financial ruin. specialist dealers in British art with an clients. The gallery exhibits at TEFAF He retrenched by selling his engraved plates emphasis on paintings, watercolours, Maastricht and TEFAF New York Fall, as and his stock of original engravings and by drawings and sculpture of the seventeenth well as holding an annual exhibition in July inviting wealthy members of the aristocracy to mid-nineteenth centuries. Lowell Libson in London. to his studio to sit for his painting of The Ltd is recognised for handling works of Visitors are always welcome to the Coronation of Queen Victoria. Sales and outstanding quality backed with scholar- gallery, which is located on the second floor commissions followed and during this period ship and as a result we count many leading of an attractive 1880s building situated of renewed success he began to produce oils American, European and British museums between New Bond Street and Savile Row. based upon his earlier exhibition works, many of which were on a smaller scale, probably to accommodate the private market. A visit by Sir Walter Scott to John Martin’s studio in 1831 had already rekindled Martin’s interest in Scottish subjects and he produced a painting of The Highland Fortress of Lessing Cray soon afterwards, the composition of which he reversed in characteristic manner Robert Brandard, after John Martin The Highland Fortress of Lessing Cray, c.1832 as the basis for this cabinet painting of Engraving · 3 ⅞ x 4 ⅜ inches; 87 x 113 mm Macbeth.7 Martin returned once more to both © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

78 Published by Lowell Libson Limited 2017 Text and publication © Lowell Libson Limited All rights reserved ISBN 978 0 9929096 4 2 Designed by Dalrymple Typeset in Elena and Embarcadero Photography by Rodney Todd-White & Son Ltd Colour reproduction by Altaimage Ltd Printed in Belgium by Albe De Coker­ Cover: Sir Joshua Reynolds Seated Youth, after Guercino (see page 12) Frontispiece: Jean-Étienne Liotard detail from Francis Owen (see page 18) 3 Clifford Street London w1s 2lf